Introduction

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is one of the federal government’s most important and effective anti-hunger programs, helping more than 195,000 Hawaiʻi residents purchase food. SNAP provides recipients with a monthly benefit that they can use to purchase food items (excluding alcohol and hot meals) from food retail outlets such as grocery stores, farmers markets and food hubs.

To ensure Hawaiʻi residents have access to the food they need to survive and thrive, it is important to ensure our state is making the most of the SNAP program. The challenge to do so increased with the arrival of the pandemic as both need and SNAP usage grew. 

In October of 2019, 79,960 households in Hawaiʻi received SNAP. By May of the following year, this number had risen sharply to 96,580. The level of SNAP participation during the pandemic peaked at 112,461 in August of 2021, but participation rates in 2022 are still higher than rates before the pandemic.

The purpose of this report is to attempt to capture a snapshot in time of how well the program is adjusting to this spike in need by gathering feedback from recipients, outreach providers, and eligibility workers at the state Department of Human Services (DHS) in Hawaiʻi. 

With this data, we identify the most important challenges and opportunities facing SNAP and recommend solutions that can be implemented by advocates, providers, policymakers, and administrators. 

This report is separated into three sections: 

• First we examine the public data on Hawaiʻi’s SNAP population, including statistics on the age and ethnicity of the program’s participants.

• Second, we convey the experiences reported by SNAP recipients during the interview process.

• Finally, we highlight a number of challenges and opportunities that arose during our discussions with service providers, SNAP recipients, and DHS staff.

It is our hope that the recommendations presented herein will be a guide for administrators, providers, and advocates wishing to ensure that SNAP is conveniently accessible to all eligible Hawaiʻi residents.