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“We tried to do exit interviews, and some did mention the salaries,” said Jo Britt-Rankin, University of Missouri’s SNAP-Ed coordinator.Īccording to multiple interviews conducted with program directors, high turnover has been a primary driver to raise SNAP-Ed employee wages.

“Because we provide so much training and opportunity for education that people do take advantage of that and then move on to a higher paying position.”īut high turnover is a problem in other states, too, including Missouri, which has seen many SNAP-Ed employees leave over the past couple of years. “It is kind of the nature of the role,” she said. But she chalks it up to employees moving on to better opportunities. The higher-than-average turnover rate isn’t lost on Jennifer McCaffrey, who manages Illinois’ SNAP-Ed program. “(With) a fair wage, we would have a better impact on the community,” she said. Because when a SNAP-Ed employee leaves, it can be difficult to replace them. That’s damaging the program’s effectiveness, Jacobs said. “What I've noticed in the six years that I've been working is that we hire everybody at the beginning of the year, they go through five months training, they get out into the community, they realize how much work they have to do for so little pay, and they quit,” she said. Jacobs said those low wages led to high turnover rates within Illinois' SNAP-Ed program.

And yet, according to our investigation, until recently, the average pay for SNAP-Ed workers in the Midwest was just $13.11 per hour. Most SNAP-Ed positions require about five months of on-the-job training. She even has a university-issued credit card. The position is technically entry-level, but Jacobs has a lot of responsibilities, including teaching ten different types of nutrition classes for all different age groups and managing relationships with local food pantries and non-profits.

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There’s no such thing as a typical work day for Jacobs.Īs a SNAP-Ed community worker, one day she might be teaching a class on how to cook with food pantry staples and the next she’ll be at the local farmers market teaching SNAP recipients how to use their benefits to buy healthy, local food. “Isn't that sad, that I get more for cleaning a house than I do for doing an actual job?” she said. And to make ends meet, she took on a second job as a housecleaner, which pays $25 an hour – close to double what the University of Illinois pays her.

Jacobs, for example, has qualified for SNAP benefits. Harvest Public Media To reach their target audience, SNAP-Ed employees set up posters at farmers markets, visit food pantries and teach community cooking classes to low-income residents. Our investigation revealed a tension between state-level SNAP-Ed program coordinators and the USDA, where finger-pointing between the two entities is resulting in a lack of accountability for the low wages. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and, in most states, run by land grant university extension offices. The goal of the program has always been to educate low-income communities on how to eat healthy on a budget. It operates in all 50 states and has been around for 30 years, though the foundation for the program was laid out in the Food Stamp Act of 1977 and it’s undergone many changes since then. SNAP-Ed is the education arm of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). An investigation by Harvest Public Media and the Midwest Newsroom found the SNAP-Ed program, which aims to educate food insecure individuals about healthy eating on a budget, pays its employees poorly - so poorly that they often experience food insecurity themselves or work second jobs. Jacobs is one of thousands of SNAP-Ed workers across the Midwest earning low wages. Her wage is so low that she's had to take on another job to make ends meet. Harvest Public Media Del Jacobs has been a SNAP-Ed community worker in Illinois for six years.

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