A brief genealogy of the Thrifty Food Plan

ABSTRACT

The Thrifty Food Plan emerged from the Economy Food Plan in 1975 as a mathematical program that represented a nutritious diet for low-income Americans. Calculated last in 2021 by the US Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the Thrifty Food Plan determines the maximum amount of food assistance for households participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Drawing on national archives, interviews, congressional discourse analysis, literature review, and mathematical modeling, this paper traces a genealogy of the Thrifty Food Plan from 1975 to the present along six themes. This genealogy tells a story of changing consumption patterns, dietary standards, and the ways in which the USDA defines food, people, and the basic food needs of the poorest Americans. This paper highlights avenues for further research into the various aspects of the Thrifty Food Plan that can elucidate the historical framing of hunger and poverty in the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• Food security
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
• food stamps
• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Thrifty Food Plan (TFP)
• dietary guidelines for Americans

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my PhD research committee for guidance during this project: Drs. Daniel C. Knudsen, Rebecca Lave, James Farmer and Richard Wilk. Thank you to the anonymous reviewers for this journal who encouraged me to restructure this manuscript and make it accessible to a wider audience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This adjustment involves taking the cost of the TFP for a “standard” 4-person household and adding 20%, 10%, and 5% for 1-person, 2-person and 3-person households, respectively, or subtracting 5% and 10% for households of 5 or 6, and 7 or more persons.

2. Now represented by the USDA MyPlate.

3. The CNPP could not set any food category limits to zero because the algorithm calculates natural logarithms (and ln(0) does not exist), so certain food categories were constrained at extremely small amounts (e.g., lower consumption limits on coffee and tea were set to .001% of current consumption for children age 1 to 5).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angela M. Babb

Angela M. Babb is a critical food geographer and scholar activist whose work examines the political economy of hunger and the contemporary social movement toward food justice and sustainability.