In Washington, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in Washington averaged 7.90%.
- Washington’s food insecurity rate was 24% 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 7.6%.
- But using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (which does include safety-net and tax-support income), the poverty rate falls to 7.0%. In other words, these programs reduced the poverty rate in Washington by 8% and the number of people living in poverty by 45,000.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 183,000 people above the poverty line in Washington, including 81,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
