Section 8 · Version 1.0 LOCKED
Food Assistance
Key findings
SNAP is the core food-assistance program examined in this section. Undocumented SNAP is counted as $0 because undocumented persons are ineligible. Citizen-child SNAP benefits are excluded under the citizen-child exclusion rule.
The audit does not model non-citizen SNAP benefit dollars from population share. The precise non-citizen benefit dollar amount is routed to Section 13 as a gap because primary records do not isolate the dollars by citizenship status.
Using the non-citizen participant share to estimate dollars would manufacture certainty and risk sweeping in citizen-child benefits. The audit prohibits that move.
Total A vs Total B
Total A is not isolable from primary records. The audit notes the non-citizen participant boundary but routes the dollar share to Section 13. Total B includes retailer capture because benefits are spent at authorized retailers. The federal government funds benefits while states administer the program.
Routed to Section 13 / excluded
WIC and the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs are routed to Section 13 because the required citizenship-condition information is not collected or not published in a usable federal spending breakout. Undocumented SNAP is excluded as ineligible; citizen-child SNAP benefits are excluded as citizen benefits.
Plain English Bottom Line
The audit does not claim a precise non-citizen SNAP dollar amount. It identifies eligibility rules and published participation boundaries, then stops where primary records stop. Food assistance is a real spending area, but the citizenship-status dollar breakout is not published cleanly enough to count without modeling.