The Inequities in Food Assistance Programs in Puerto Rico

Human Rights Research Center
Jul 9
13 min read

Updated: Jul 10

Author: Gabrielle Meyers, MPP

July 9, 2025

[Image credit: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock]

Although the United States (US) is one of the few countries that does not consider food to be a human right, the United States still implements nutrition assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP), respectively. These nutrition assistance programs are implemented in spite of the US’ lack of acknowledgement of food as a human right because it is their “objective to achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food,” even if they don’t consider “the right to food as an enforceable obligation.” SNAP is the US’s main nutrition assistance program, serving almost 42 million Americans, which equates to about 12 percent of the total population. To qualify for SNAP benefits, recipients must meet income thresholds based on the poverty level and the size of their household; they must also meet certain work requirements to maintain those benefits from year to year. For example, in fiscal year 2024, a family of four needed to make $939 per month or less to receive up to $2,313 in benefits.The program is implemented by the states and overseen by the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), and the federal government reimburses state agencies for 50 percent of their administrative costs. SNAP is an effective program, reducing food insecurity and medical care costs and improving health for recipients.

NAP is SNAP’s Puerto Rican counterpart. According to a 2024 report, 42.7 percent of Puerto Ricans are receiving NAP benefits. This statistic represents a much higher rate of food insecurity in Puerto Rico than in that of any American state; as a point of comparison, New Mexico had the highest percentage of recipients in 2024 at 24.5 percent. NAP is implemented by Puerto Rico through its Administration for the Socioeconomic Development of the Family, and the federal government provides a block grant that covers all of the costs of benefits and 50 percent of administrative costs. Like SNAP, NAP is overseen by FNS. NAP is unique to Puerto Rico, even though other American territories, such as American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, also have block grants to cover nutrition assistance. However, Guam and the US Virgin Islands qualify for SNAP.

The key difference between SNAP and NAP is that NAP funding is capped by the block grant, currently at $2.9 billion. This has several repercussions, such as the fact that SNAP can provide an appropriate level of benefits based on pricing. SNAP’s general benefit formula is based on the assumption that 30 percent of net income is spent on food, while NAP has no benefit formula and is based on how much funding is available. Thus, SNAP’s benefits take into account the cost of food, while NAP does not.

As demonstrated by the graphs below, SNAP has higher income eligibility levels than NAP does, and gives out more in monthly benefits than NAP.

NAP benefits are sometimes increased during natural disasters and other emergencies like Hurricane Maria and COVID in order to compensate for additional members of the population who may suddenly become food-insecure due to such major events to the point where they are more comparable to SNAP. However, the relief funds are always eventually rolled back to pre-disaster levels. For example, before Hurricane Maria, a family of three needed to make $599 per month to qualify for $315 in monthly benefits through NAP. After the supplemental funding given in the wake of the storm, those limits rose to $1,606 and $511, respectively- the same levels as the SNAP program. When the supplemental funding expired 11 months later, the eligibility limit was retained and the benefits reverted to their previous levels. Thus, NAP recipients only receive similar levels of assistance as SNAP recipients in times of crisis- and it’s important to note that most SNAP recipients were not affected by Hurricane Maria, meaning that NAP recipients only received as much assistance as SNAP recipients when they were in an emergency and SNAP recipients, for the most part, were not.

The following graph shows that, particularly for single and two-person households, the discrepancy between SNAP and NAP is drastic, with 1-member SNAP households receiving hundreds of dollars more per month than NAP households do. However, the gap between the two programs’ benefits has decreased for larger families. The discrepancies between the different household sizes are particularly notable considering that, unlike SNAP, NAP allows elderly people living with family to qualify as their own single-person household when receiving benefits. Thus, not only do 1-member NAP households receive less in monthly benefits, they are also less likely to be of working age and to have other means of income than their SNAP counterparts.

Puerto Rico experiences a higher poverty rate (39.6 percent) than the rest of the United States (11.1 percent). Puerto Ricans also have a harder time affording food because 85 percent of their food is imported and therefore more expensive. However, their food assistance program has limited funding due to the cap, so not everyone who is eligible can be included in the program due to lack of sufficient funds. Those who are eligible to receive food assistance through NAP still do not receive as many benefits as those on the mainland. As a result, Puerto Ricans face more food insecurity than other US citizens.

Although the US does not recognize food as a human right, the disparities between NAP and SNAP highlight the urgent need to make food assistance more equitable, starting by granting Puerto Rico access to SNAP.

Background

Puerto Rico has been a United States territory since 1898, when Spain ceded it. In 1901, the Insular Cases defined Puerto Rico as unequal to the United States: “belonging to the United States, but not part of the United States.” However, Puerto Ricans have been considered US citizens since 1917.

Puerto Ricans originally received food assistance from the federal government through the Food Stamp Program, which was implemented in the same manner in Puerto Rico as it was in the states. Food stamps date back to 1939, but were implemented fully in 1974. Though there were reportedly “far fewer grossly malnourished people” as a result of the program, it was extremely expensive to maintain. The Food Stamp Program became SNAP in 1982, which had more limited eligibility rates. Instead of SNAP, despite having been on the same food stamp program as the continental United States previously, Puerto Rico received an annual block grant that became NAP to cut down on food stamp spending. Transitioning to NAP resulted in an immediate 25 percent reduction in nutrition assistance for Puerto Ricans. Under the Food Stamp Program, the maximum monthly benefit for a family of four was $221. Under NAP, that benefit was $199. In comparison, a family of four in fiscal year 2024 received $2,206 from NAP in monthly benefits and $2,313 from SNAP in monthly benefits. This block grant has grown significantly, from $825 million in 1982 to $2.9 billion today. SNAP, on the other hand, has grown from $11 billion to $112.8 billion-- four times as fast as NAP. SNAP has grown at a faster rate to meet the demand of rising food prices. In 1982, people spent 12 percent of their income on groceries. In 2023, people spent 13.5-32.6 percent of their income on groceries, depending on which income quartile they fell into.

Human Rights Framework

According to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States signed in 1948, every individual has the right to food as part of an adequate standard of living. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) goes on to define this right to food as people having “physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.” Although the US is not a party to the CESCR, it is important to note that this is a generally accepted definition of the right to food.

The US voted against food as a human right in 2017. The US Mission cited a number of reasons for this, but the most important reason is that while they hope to “achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food,” they do not see that as “an enforceable obligation.”.

Although the US voted against food as a human right, it is still important to analyze its food assistance programs through a human rights lens because this attitude influences its approach to providing food assistance programs. Analyzing the differences in accessibility, adaptability, and equity help to show how this attitude is disproportionately hurting NAP recipients.

Analysis of Disparities

Accessibility

Unlike SNAP, NAP is constrained by its budget cap. The budget cap implies that NAP cannot award benefits to everyone who meets its criteria, as it lacks the proper amount of funding needed to do so, and it also cannot adjust benefits for food costs. This violates the notion that governments cannot discriminate in terms of access to food, since people have easier access to food through SNAP than through NAP. As a consequence, there is a severe disparity in food insecurity between Puerto Rico (40 percent in 2020) compared to that of the states (11.8 percent). This is also much higher than the most food insecure state (Mississippi at 16.2 percent) and Utah, which has a similar population size to Puerto Rico (9.2 percent).

Adaptability

Unlike SNAP, NAP is not guaranteed expansion in the face of disasters, whether it be natural disasters, a global pandemic, or otherwise. Because of this, Puerto Ricans did not get immediate disaster benefits after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 disaster which caused $65-115 billion in damages and roughly 3000 fatalities. It took six months for Puerto Rico to receive disaster benefits through NAP, while the Virgin Islands, another American territory impacted by the storm (but that has access to SNAP), only 47 days to receive these benefits. According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comment No. 12, governments must provide the right to food when an individual or group is unable for reasons beyond their control, including victims of natural or other disasters. Although the US is not party to the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, this comment is meant to be an expansion on the definition of the right to food, which the US acknowledges as a part of everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The federal government’s lack of support to Puerto Rico in regard to food assistance makes it much more difficult for Puerto Rico to recover from disasters, which perpetuates the disparities in poverty between Puerto Rico and the rest of the country. According to a survey from the Milken Institute School of Public Health, 40 percent of respondents were experiencing food insecurity during COVID-19, up from 38 percent pre-pandemic. In contrast, according to Map the Meal Gap, 11.8 percent of people in the states were experiencing food insecurity in 2020. Twenty percent said that an adult had to skip meals due to a lack of money, a six percent increase from before the pandemic. Furthermore, 66 percent were skipping meals one or two days a week. Thus, Puerto Ricans were more food insecure in the wake of the pandemic.

Equity

Because food is not a human right in the United States, SNAP benefits have work requirements, meaning that access to food is conditional. To that end, SNAP includes an employment and training program. NAP does not have work requirements or an employment and training program. In fact, working could lead to loss of benefits if recipients start making above the eligibility threshold. In contrast, SNAP has a gradual phase-out system that allows recipients to work and receive benefits. In 2019, recipients had their benefits decreased by 24-36 cents for each dollar of increased income. A single-person household that year received $192 in benefits per month. If they reached the income threshold by earning more money at work, they would have that $192 decreased by 24-36 percent, instead of losing all their benefits at once. Without this phase-out system, over 3 million recipients would be at risk of losing their benefits.

The lack of work requirements further perpetuates the systemic poverty in Puerto Rico due to its depressed labor force. Though the percentage of households where no adults work has decreased since COVID 19, Puerto Rico’s percentage is consistently much higher than in the states, as seen in the following graph:

Since so many households in Puerto Rico are receiving food assistance through NAP, a work requirement could provide a boost to labor participation rates, and thereby to Puerto Rico’s economy. Thus, this particular discrepancy between the two programs is one of several factors that perpetuate poverty in Puerto Rico.

Implications for Human Rights

Though the US does not formally acknowledge food as a human right, nor is it a party to the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, it does claim to “pursue policies that promote access to food.” In the US mission’s rationale for voting against the right to food, they explain that each state is responsible for “implementing their human rights obligations”, meaning that the US considers itself for enforcing the right to food within the US and does not consider itself obligated to enforce the right to food abroad. Thus, using official expansions on the definition of the right to food can be helpful in exploring the human rights implications of the U.S.’s food policy.

Violations of the Right to Food

Article 11 of the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights mentions that governments should “[disseminate] knowledge of the principles of nutrition…to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources.” NAP does not include nutrition education. A study of adults in Puerto Rico found that only 14.5 percent of adults in Puerto Rico met the recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable (FV) intake, compared to approximately 35.6 percent of adults in the states. One of the main predictors for low FV intake was a lack of knowledge for the minimum recommendations for FV intake.

Furthermore, according to CESCR’s General Comment No. 12, states are obligated to provide the right to food when its residents are unable to for reasons beyond their control. As stated previously, NAP’s lack of built-in disaster relief and the delays in federal relief caused great harm to Puerto Ricans, who import 85 percent of their food.

Most importantly, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights says that governments are required to refrain from discriminating in access to food. As the Center for a New Economy points out, “People born in Puerto Rico are US citizens by birth. That should be enough to warrant equal treatment.”

Poverty and Inequality

According to a study from the U.S. Census Bureau in 2018, SNAP played a crucial role in lifting about three million people out of poverty. SNAP could have a similar positive effect on Puerto Rico. Replacing NAP with SNAP has the potential to bring up to 266 thousand people into Puerto Rico’s labor force, due to a projected increase in recipients as well as SNAP’s work requirement. This would be a critical change, as a 15-year trend of working-eligible adults migrating away from Puerto Rico has resulted in an increasingly elderly population. Including Puerto Rico in SNAP could increase labor force participation and tax revenue and decrease the poverty rate, which was 43 percent in 2023. Months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico received a supplemental package that raised NAP’s eligibility and benefits to SNAP’s levels. As a result, 90 thousand households joined the program. Labor force participation rose significantly, with the proportion of NAP households with a worker increased by six percent. This pattern continued until supplemental funding expired.

In terms of food insecurity, disparities between Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States persist. In 2021, over three times as many people in Puerto Rico lived below the federal poverty line as in the continental United States. According to the Statistics Institute of Puerto Rico, people earning less than $25 thousand a year were 3.3 times more likely to experience food insecurity than those with higher incomes. Because Puerto Ricans are more likely to be impoverished, and impoverished people are more likely to be food insecure, Puerto Ricans are more likely to be food insecure than their mainland counterparts.

Lastly, SNAP has a work requirement and a gradual phase-out system where recipients can keep receiving benefits even as they begin to earn more income. Since NAP lacks both of these features, individuals are discouraged from working since earning more than the income limits would result in a loss of benefits. NAP’s design forces its recipients to remain permanently dependent on it, continuing the cycle of poverty.

Recommendations

Given that the US’s disregard for food as a human right has brought harm to Puerto Ricans in the form of unfair treatment, food insecurity, and prolonged poverty, it is time for the US to re-evaluate their stance on food as a human right. One possible way to do this would be through a constitutional amendment, like the one Maine passed. A constitutional amendment would also be in line with the US’s rationale for rejecting the right to food in the first place, since the US Mission to Geneva claimed that they would “pursue [domestic] policies that promote access to food.” They could also bring back some of the pandemic-era policies that improved access to food, like universal school meals.

Puerto Rico needs to be included in SNAP because Puerto Ricans deserve the same access to food assistance as any other US citizen, and NAP does not provide that access. It is insufficiently funded to include all eligible people and to give them benefits proportional to their income and the price of food in Puerto Rico; its block grant structure renders it inflexible to food prices, natural disasters, pandemics, and other emergencies; and its lack of features like employment training and phase-out makes it incapable of lifting people out of poverty the way SNAP does. A 2024 survey of US residents found that seven out of ten people support including Puerto Rico in SNAP. In 2023, Puerto Rico’s delegate in the House and Senators Gillibrand and Blumenthal in the Senate introduced the Puerto Rican Nutrition Assistance Fairness Act. The bill would insert Puerto Rico into the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, allowing it to transition to SNAP.

Conclusion

As food prices have risen and the cost-of-living crisis has come to the forefront of public discourse, it is more important than ever for the United States to recognize the right to food and their responsibility to US residents; not to provide food, but to make it accessible. It is also important to remember Puerto Ricans, who not only also suffer from this crisis but lack the governmental support their mainland counterparts do. We all benefit from the recognition and implementation of human rights, which is why we would all benefit from the US not only recognizing food as a human right, but finally also improving nutrition assistance programs and pursuing other policies to improve food access.

Glossary

Accessibility: the quality of being within reach for people.
Block grant: a grant from the federal government which a local authority can allocate to a wide range of services.
Ceded: yielded, typically by treaty.
Compensate: to provide (in this case) food assistance to reduce the effect of worsening economic conditions on food insecurity.
Discrepancies: lack of similarity.
Disparities: differences in level or treatment, especially those that are seen as unfair.
Disproportionately: to the extent that is too large or too small in comparison with something else.
Eligibility: the quality of being allowed to receive, in this case, food assistance.
Income Threshold: the maximum amount of money a person can earn to qualify for, in this case, food assistance.
Malnourished: supplied with less than the minimum of the nutrients essential for survival.
Net Income: the amount an individual makes after subtracting taxes.
Perpetuates: cause something to continue.
Phase-out system: withdraw benefits from use in gradual stages.
Poverty Level: a level of household income, below which one is classified as poor according to the federal government.
Procurement: the act or process of obtaining something.
Quartile: one of four equal groups that a set of things can be divided into.
Recipients: people who have been provided with food assistance.
Reimburses: pays money back.
Repercussions: widespread, indirect effects of an action.
Socioeconomic: related to the differences between groups of people caused mainly by their financial situation.
Sufficient: enough to meet the needs of a situation.
Supplemental: additional provision to what is already available in order to enhance it.
Work requirement: for SNAP, this means registering for work, participating in SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) or workfare if assigned by your state SNAP agency, taking a suitable job if offered, and not voluntarily quitting a job or reducing your work hours below 30 a week without a good reason.

Sources

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The Inequities in Food Assistance Programs in Puerto Rico

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