The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP program, is a nutrition program provided by the government to help low-income families supplement their grocery budget. Its an effort to make sure that citizens can afford enough food to survive. Commonly, the SNAP program is referred to as "food stamps", even though the program generally runs through cards and not "stamps".

Recently, the team at 24/7 Wall St gathered all of the SNAP data from states to review which states and cities are using the most, and least, of the program. Here's what they said about the research:

"According to the latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, more than 15.8 million American households — or 12.4% of all households — received SNAP benefits in 2021."

When their team broke out the data by state, they ranked which city in each state utilized the highest rate of SNAP benefits.

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In Louisiana, the city with the highest rate of SNAP usage was Lake Charles. Based on their research, 22.9% of Lake Charles households were receiving SNAP benefits. The entire state of Louisiana has a SNAP recipient rate of 19%.

For reference, Texas has a state SNAP recipient rate of 12.2%, Arkansas has a rate of 10.9%, Mississippi has a rate of 13.5% in the state. This means Louisiana has the highest rate in the region for SNAP recipient rate.

When we focus on Lake Charles specifically, the city's rate of 22.9% makes them the 11th highest city in the United States. The highest rate for a city in the US is McAllen, Texas where the rate is 30.9% of households.

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