Given these potential unintended consequences, it is important to rigorously assess whether restrictions yield meaningful benefits to diet and health. Yet evaluation faces numerous challenges. Prior to the waivers, the only limitations on SNAP purchases were that benefits must be used for food intended for at-home (FAH) consumption and could not be used on hot foods or alcohol.  Now there are 23 “waiver” states with different sets of restrictions, presenting a significant barrier to evaluation. ...

Even though the federal government spends nearly $100 billion annually on SNAP, there is no federally funded survey or data source that can evaluate this important change to the program. The only two surveys that potentially could be used, the Consumer Expenditures (CE) survey and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), are both too small to conduct cross-state analysis and lack the detailed information on which foods are purchased that are needed to assess spending changes due to restrictions (for the CE) or are released in 2-year waves (for the NHANES), thus limiting researchers’ ability to assess key timing issues for restriction rollouts. As a result, the research community will have to rely on private funders and proprietary vendors for data to evaluate the restrictions.