USDA Food and Nutrition Administration

USDA's food-assistance agency was established inside the department on August 8, 1969⧉, and until June 1, 2026 it was known as the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) -- the rename elevated it from a mission area to an administration, with the Administrator now reporting directly to the Secretary of Agriculture⧉.▸ FNA administers USDA's 16 nutrition assistance programs⧉, the largest of which, SNAP, is authorized by the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008) (originally the 1964 Food Stamp Act). It partners with more than 175 state, territorial, and Tribal agencies to deliver benefits.

In September 2025, SNAP alone paid benefits to 41.6 million people in 22.2 million households, averaging $186.13 per person that month⧉.▸ Combined with WIC, school lunch and breakfast, and its other programs, FNA says it reaches roughly 1 in 4 Americans over the course of a year⧉. Under the 2026 reorganization, SNAP's implementation and oversight staff are relocating from Washington, D.C. to a new hub in Indianapolis, Indiana⧉.

FNA's own reorganization notice, published mid-2026, says its Administrator oversees a $170 billion budget⧉ -- the notice does not attach a fiscal-year label, but the figure describes FNA's current, FY2026 spending -- up from $142.2 billion in actual program costs FNS recorded for FY2025⧉, executed by approximately 1,100 employees nationwide⧉.▸ Against the Census Bureau's 341,784,857 U.S. residents⧉ as of July 2025, that's about $497.39 per person.

The Census Bureau's own poverty measure supplies a counterfactual: in 2024, SNAP alone kept 3.585 million people -- including 1.417 million children -- out of poverty⧉, the third-largest anti-poverty effect of any federal element measured, behind only Social Security and refundable tax credits.▸ Without that transfer, those households' measured resources would have fallen below the poverty line that year -- a counted effect, not an assumption.