New Survey: Food Insecurity In Commonwealth A Growing Concern

BOSTON – Nearly half of Massachusetts families experienced at least some level of food insecurity during the previous year, according to a new survey released this week.

The survey, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, contacted more than 10,000 K-12 parents and guardians in 14 Massachusetts public school districts. Their responses show the challenges facing some of the Commonwealth’s neediest families during the pandemic.

“The level of need we found shows food insecurity is an ongoing concern even as the worst of the pandemic passes,” said Steve Koczela, President of the MassINC Polling Group. “The sheer number of respondents we reached for this poll, over 10,000 households, lets policymakers at the state and local level respond in a very nuanced way.”

In the face of that need, Pandemic-EBT (P-EBT), a program that provides monthly food money to students who receive free and reduced price school meals during the COVID-19 emergency, was seen as a welcome benefit. Nearly all (98%) households who received the benefit say they used it to buy food, and nearly all of those (94%) called it “very helpful”.

However, although many of those households likely also qualified for SNAP benefits (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), only a third (32%) said they had received them. Even among those who reported food insecurity, only 40% said they received SNAP during the pandemic. Less than half of respondents making $25,000 or less, an amount that almost surely qualified them for SNAP, depending on the size of their household, had received SNAP.

“This survey confirms what we’ve been hearing from communities throughout the pandemic: that, while P-EBT has been a critical tool in helping families access healthy food, food insecurity remains a prevailing issue,” said Jill Shah, President of the Shah Family Foundation, which sponsored the survey.

“At the same time,” Shah added, “the survey highlights the disheartening reality that programs like SNAP designed to address food insecurity simply are not reaching many eligible families. This data serves as a call-to-action to continue our efforts to increase SNAP participation while at the same time reimagining how we use government funding in more accessible, less restrictive ways to get food to those who need it most.”

The survey results suggest that more information and communication could be key to getting more families to apply for and use SNAP benefits. A majority of respondents who did not apply for SNAP thought they would not meet the program’s low-income requirements, yet were unsure what the income parameters actually were.

Similarly, nearly half of those who used P-EBT but hadn’t applied for SNAP did not know they could use both programs simultaneously. One in three of those who hadn’t applied said they would have applied had they known about changes to the program that had streamlined and eased the application process..

Among the lowest-income families surveyed, half of all respondents with an annual income of less than $25,000 were unaware of how to apply for SNAP. Very few respondents overall knew that one can apply for SNAP online, via the phone, and in person.

In addition, although the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) does not share the immigration status of SNAP applicants, respondents also cited concerns over immigration status as a factor in their decision of whether to apply - 44% not knowing that applying for SNAP for eligible children would not affect theirs or their child’s immigration status.

The poll’s results are based on a survey of 10,650 parents and guardians from 14 selected districts from across Massachusetts. The Chelsea Public school district was the pilot district for the survey, followed by Lawrence, Fall River, Malden, Chicopee, Pittsfield, Everett, North Adams, Brockton, Framingham, Greenfield, Methuen, Attleboro and Dartmouth.

Full data from the survey can be viewed at: https://files.constantcontact.com/e6e14db6301/6d31ce42-100f-4088-8b21-aac782f3d099.pdf