Methodology & Sources

We are committed to transparency. Every figure on this site comes from identified public data and shows the period it describes.

What the estimator calculates

The estimator looks up the published maximum monthly SNAP allotment for a household size and a location, and shows an approximate weekly equivalent alongside general federal income-reference amounts.

What it does not calculate

It does not calculate an actual benefit and does not decide eligibility. It never asks for income, expenses, deductions, assets, immigration status, disability, work-rule details, or case information, so it has nothing with which to make such a determination. Only a state agency can decide eligibility or set an actual benefit amount.

Maximum-allotment tables

Amounts come from USDA Food and Nutrition Administration, SNAP Fiscal Year 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustments. They are in effect for FY2026: October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. They were retrieved on 2026-08-02 as data version fy2026.1.

USDA FY2026 cost-of-living adjustment (opens in a new tab) · USDA FY2026 cost-of-living adjustment memorandum (opens in a new tab)

Geographies

The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia use the ordinary 48-state schedule.
Alaska has three separate schedules, chosen explicitly by the visitor: Urban, Rural I, Rural II. The area is never inferred from a ZIP code, a city, a county, a community name, or a device location, and no amount is shown until an area is chosen.
Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands each use their own schedule.
New York City uses the same 48-state schedule and the same income-reference schedule as New York State.
Puerto Rico is excluded. It does not participate in SNAP; it operates the Nutrition Assistance Program. No SNAP amount is ever produced for Puerto Rico.

Household sizes

Household sizes 1 through 8 are the published table rows, used exactly as published. Above 8, the published rule applies: the amount for a household of 8 plus one additional-person increment for each further member. The estimator’s interface accepts 1 to 50 people; that is a limit of this website, not a SNAP rule. For a larger household, contact your state SNAP agency.

Weekly equivalent

The weekly figure is the monthly maximum multiplied by 12 and divided by 52, rounded to the nearest dollar. Benefits are issued monthly; the weekly figure is only a way to read the monthly maximum.

Rounding and display

Amounts are displayed in whole US dollars through one shared formatter, so no page can show a differently rounded figure from another.

Income-reference amounts

The general federal income amounts come from the same source and period as the allotment tables: USDA Food and Nutrition Administration, SNAP Fiscal Year 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustments, FY2026: October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, retrieved 2026-08-02.

The 48 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and New York City share one income table.
Alaska uses its own income table for all three of its allotment areas.
Hawaii uses its own income table.
Puerto Rico has no SNAP income-reference result.

The result panel shows the 130% gross monthly standard and the 100% net monthly standard. A third standard, at 165%, is stored and validated but not shown there: the 165% standard applies only to a household that includes an older adult or a person with a disability and is applying to be treated as a separate household. it is stored and validated here, but it is never presented as a universal eligibility standard.

Why these are not eligibility determinations

These are general federal reference amounts for a fiscal year. Some states use different rules or higher gross-income limits, and household exceptions apply. The site never collects income, so it never compares anything a visitor enters against these amounts, and it never states or implies that a household qualifies or does not qualify.

Program facts on the homepage

Each figure under “SNAP at a glance” is shown with the period it describes and a link to its source.

42.1 million people (FY2025) — exact value 42.1 million people. As published, to one decimal place in millions. People, not households. Source: USDA Economic Research Service, The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report (EIB-304).
$188 per person (FY2025) — exact value 187.94 USD per person per month. Exact published value $187.94, displayed rounded to the nearest whole dollar. Per person, not per household. Source: USDA Economic Research Service, The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report (EIB-304).
$95.0 billion in food benefits (FY2025) — exact value 95 billion USD. As published, to one decimal place in billions. This is the value of food benefits issued, not total federal SNAP spending of $101.7 billion. Source: USDA Economic Research Service, The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report (EIB-304).
79% of participating households (FY2023) — exact value 79 percent of households. As published, to the nearest whole percent. Households, not people. Source: USDA Food and Nutrition Administration, Characteristics of SNAP Households: Fiscal Year 2023.

Benefits issued versus total federal spending

The published figure of $95.0 billion is the value of SNAP food benefits issued in FY2025. Total federal SNAP spending in the same year was $101.7 billion, which also covers administration, nutrition education, employment and training, and other program costs. The two figures are never used interchangeably.

Grocery basket comparison

The grocery comparison uses a committed snapshot of 11 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Average Price Data series for the U.S. city average in July 2026. The records were checked August 15, 2026 through the public, keyless Version 1 API. BLS does not provide an item-level publication timestamp for these records; August 12, 2026 is recorded only as the release date of the July CPI.

The items were selected because they are the exact BLS series used in two illustrative configurations and passed the item, unit, month, value, and provenance checks. The baskets show different mixes at similar totals. They are not equal in food amount, weight, servings, duration, or nutrition; they are not recommendations and do not prove value or health superiority.

Calculation and rounding

Source prices stay at their published three-decimal precision. Quantities may have two decimal places. Integer fixed-point arithmetic multiplies and sums the exact values before a single half-up currency rounding. Percent difference is the exact signed Snack-minus-Staples difference divided by the exact Staples total, rounded to one decimal place with integer quotient and remainder arithmetic. Because displayed line amounts are rounded separately, they can add to one cent more or less than the total; the page discloses that next to any affected total.

Links, privacy, and refreshes

Basket quantities can be represented in the URL for reload, sharing, and browser history. Optional Your price entries are never placed in the URL, stored, or transmitted. The committed data records its acquisition hashes as documentary provenance; fresh byte equality is not required because response formatting can change. Before grocery data or claims are released, all series are reconciled again and the strict freshness validator must pass. The current review deadline is September 11, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

BLS Average Price Data (opens in a new tab)

Eat Well for Less guide

The Eat Well for Less guide uses seven current official sources selected for dietary guidance, meal planning, recipes, seasonal produce, food safety, SNAP healthy incentives, and retailer locations. Externally verifiable factual, numeric, food-safety, program-availability, and interface claims map to a source in the validated registry. General practical suggestions are identified as editorial guidance and do not receive invented citations.

The registry was reviewed 2026-08-16. Its advisory annual editorial recheck is due 2027-08-16; a controlling-source change requires an earlier review. The retailer locator's healthy-incentive filtering function was checked 2026-08-16. These dates are governance evidence, not source publication dates. No source, API, browser service, key, or personal data is requested at runtime.

The guide includes the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendation to prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods and limit highly processed foods, plus the high-level food options the page uses. It excludes political framing, disease-causation claims, clinical instructions, and individualized targets because those are outside a general educational page. Food-safety rules remain separately attributed to USDA FSIS rather than blended into budget suggestions. The page does not provide personalized nutrition.

Recipes remain outbound links to official SNAP-Ed discovery pages. That is a deliberate Day 4 tightening of the project Bible's optional allowance for curated local recipe records, not an accidental omission; no recipe text, image, nutrition panel, or partner content is copied into this site.

Sources

State resources

State program names, application links, hotlines, office locators, and EBT information are drawn from official government directories and state resources, and each jurisdiction page shows the date its information was last checked.

Agency name

SNAP is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA), formerly the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). Older report titles and web addresses still use the earlier name, so both appear in our source citations.

The description of how SNAP is funded is dated to federal fiscal year 2026. Federal legislation enacted in 2025 changes parts of that structure over the following years, so that copy is reviewed at each annual update.

Data periods and refreshes

Every result shows the period or date of the source data. When newer information is not yet available, the site shows the most recently verified data with its effective period.

USDA publishes the FY2027 cost-of-living adjustment around mid-August 2026, effective October 1, 2026. FY2026 continues to be served through September 30, 2026. FY2027 is introduced as a separate controlled data version; rows from two fiscal years are never mixed.

The next fiscal year’s tables take effect on 2026-10-01. Until then, FY2026 remains the published data. Rows from two fiscal years are never mixed, and a fiscal-year change is made as one controlled data-version change validated at build time.

Refresh triggers

Allotment and income tables: a new USDA cost-of-living adjustment, effective October 1.
Program facts: Replace when USDA ERS publishes the FY2026 Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape report.
State resources: a change to an official state directory entry.
Funding explanation: the annual review, or an effective change in federal law.

Plain-language standard

Pages are written to lead with the answer, use short and familiar sentences, explain program terms where they appear, and define every acronym at first use. Statistics are paired with the fiscal year or period they describe, households are distinguished from people, and benefits are distinguished from total program spending. We use neutral, non-stigmatizing language and avoid advocacy, partisan commentary, and unsupported causal claims.

Independent resource

My SNAP Benefits is an independent educational resource. It is not a government agency and does not determine eligibility, process applications, or access individual benefit cases.