While down from pandemic era highs set in 2022, the average FoodShare benefits per Wisconsin household remain well above the pre-pandemic high water mark, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The average monthly benefits per household reached a peak of $263 in 2019, more than double the 1989 level.
The post-pandemic peak was $464 in 2022.
By 2024 and 2025, average monthly household benefits declined to $306 and $308, respectively. While well below the pandemic-related spike, these levels remain substantially higher than before the pandemic, and roughly equal to pre-pandemic benefits even after accounting for inflation.
Benefits are a function of a household’s size and income. The number of people living in a household determines a “maximum benefit,” which is reduced by 30 percent of the household’s “adjusted income” — that is, earnings minus the cost of child care, medical care and some other expenses.
As a result of the government shutdowns due to COVID and the subsequent federal stimulus packages, average benefits surged. For about three years during the pandemic, the program simply gave all beneficiaries their “maximum benefit,” ignoring any income a household earned. The so-called “emergency allotments” ended in March 2023. It was these that produced the spike in average benefits per household. As the Legislative Fiscal Bureau put it, the emergency allotments could “increase the statewide monthly issuance of FoodShare benefits by more than 50 percent.”
