In South Dakota, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in South Dakota averaged 8.7%.
- South Dakota’s food insecurity rate was 16% 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 a similar 10.2%.
- But using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (which does include safety-net and tax-support income), the poverty rate falls to 6.2%. In other words, these programs reduced the poverty rate in South Dakota by 39% and the number of people living in poverty by 35,000.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 23,000 people above the poverty line in South Dakota, including 11,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
