By Teon Hayes and Elizabeth Lower-Basch

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps people with low incomes avoid hunger and afford food. It stimulates the economy, improves individuals’ success at school and work, and promotes better health.

SNAP’s Employment and Training (E&T) program is designed to assist participants in gaining skills, training, or work experience that helps them obtain regular employment. States operate these programs and have flexibility in the services they provide, who receives them, and the entities that deliver these services. However, SNAP E&T has onerous restrictions and entrenched biases that most hurt communities of color. Several policies are rooted in racism and classism. By perpetuating systems of oppression, SNAP E&T pushes critical nutrition aid out of reach. These obstacles keep the program from serving as a supportive pathway to opportunity.

In this report, we analyze these challenges and offers recommendations to advance racial equity within SNAP E&T and make it function more effectively.

Read the executive summary here and the full report here.