In Rhode Island, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in Rhode Island averaged 8.4%.
- Rhode Island’s food insecurity rate was 20% lower than the national average of 10.4%.
- The official poverty rate (which does not account for income from safety-net and tax-support programs such as SNAP, EITC, and others) in the state averaged 9.0%.
- But using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (which does include safety-net and tax-support income), the poverty rate falls to 6.0%. In other words, these programs reduced the poverty rate in Rhode Island by 33% and the number of people living in poverty by 33,000.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 26,000 people above the poverty line in Rhode Island, including 10,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
