This report is one of a series produced to highlight results from the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS). The report series is designed to cover a variety of economic topics, such as poverty, occupation, home values, and labor force participation. This series provides information about the changing economic characteristics of the nation and states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACS also provides detailed estimates of demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics for congressional districts, counties, places, and other localities every year. A description of the ACS is provided in the text box “What Is the American Community Survey?”

This report presents data on the food stamp/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at the national and state levels based on the 2008 ACS. On October 1, 2008, the fed-eral Food Stamp Program was renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. These data are for households, not individuals. If any person living at the sample address at the time of the interview received food stamps/SNAP, the household is included in the count.

As a result of the 2006 ACS Content Test, the U.S. Census Bureau changed the wording of the 2008 food stamp/SNAP question to include “food stamp benefit card” and removed the dollar amount portion of the question. In the test, the new version of the question resulted in a higher reported recipiency rate for food stamps/SNAP, in part because of a wording, and the 2008 ACS, which used the new wording.

The data contained in this report are based on the ACS sample interviewed in the 2008 ACS and are estimates of the actual figures that could have been obtained by interviewing the entire population using the same methodology. All comparisons presented in this report have taken sampling error into account and are significant at the 90 percent confidence level unless noted otherwise. Due to rounding, some details may not sum to totals. For information on sampling and estimation methods, confidentiality protection, and sampling and nonsampling errors, please see the “2008 ACS Accuracy of the Data” document located at <www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/accuracy/accuracy2008.pdf>.