Projects

Project Overview

In early 2021, FNS published a final rule titled, Employment and Training Opportunities in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This rule required SNAP state agencies to provide a written notice to SNAP recipients describing all applicable work requirements for individuals residing in the household. States needed to begin meeting this notice requirement by October 1, 2021.

SNAP notices are a critical aspect of administering SNAP. They are the primary source of communication with SNAP households, so lack of clarity in them can lead to problems for SNAP agencies and those applying for SNAP, including delayed application or benefit receipt processes and/or noncompliance and errors.

The purpose of this work was to develop a Model Consolidated Work Notice that was useful to states in drafting their work notices and helpful to SNAP households as they attempt to comply with the work requirements. Insight built on our successful approach used to develop the Model Notice Toolkit through the following tasks:

• Conducted a review of FNS regulations that apply to consolidated work notices and created a review tool to help states evaluate their notices for policy compliance, comprehension and readability, and usability and presentation
• Developed a model consolidated SNAP work notice, which met all requirements and best practices regarding comprehension, readability, usability, and presentation
• Used recommendations from the U.S. Census Bureau to improve comprehension and compliance of SNAP households based on SNAP work requirement notice testing
• Made the model notice accessible for most SNAP participants, as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability formula and the Flesch Reading Ease Score
• Annotated the model notice to help FNS Regional Offices and state agencies in future notice improvement work

Products

Chart of informational elements, notice framework, model notice, annotated model notice