Monthly state-wide data for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) published by the Virginia Department of Social Services. The dataset highlights Norfolk's month-by-month figures for households and persons receiving assistance and the amount of benefits distributed. The data is hosted by data.norfolk.gov and was last updated on April 30, 2026.
Use Cases
- Analyzing trends in total SNAP participation using the `Households (TOTAL)` and `Persons (TOTAL)` columns over the `Month` column.
- Comparing benefit issuance between Public Assistance (PA) and Non-Public Assistance (NPA) households using the `Issuance (PA)` and `Issuance (NPA)` columns.
- Modeling the relationship between the number of participating households (`Households (TOTAL)`) and total benefit costs (`Issuance (TOTAL)`) for budgetary forecasting.
Strengths
- Data is updated monthly, providing a time-series view of program dynamics.
- Includes granular breakdowns between Public Assistance (PA) and Non-Public Assistance (NPA) categories for households, persons, and issuance.
- Published by an official state agency, the Virginia Department of Social Services.
Limitations
- Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
Provenance
- Source
- Virginia Department of Social Services, published via data.norfolk.gov.
- Collection Method
- Routine administrative data collection.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-30 20:11:04; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Norfolk, Virginia, USA.