Judge rules that food stamp sales figures are public

By Jonathan Ellis, Argus Leader, Nov. 30, 2016

A federal judge has ruled that the Obama administration must disclose the annual sales amounts that retailers in the federal food stamp program earn each year.

District Judge Karen Schreier ruled that disclosure of annual sales amounts that retailers earn by participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would not cause competitive harm to the hundreds of thousands of grocers, convenience stores, big-box retailers and others that participate in the $74 billion program.

Schreier’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Argus Leader Media against the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program. In 2011, the paper filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the annual sales amounts of every business in the nation that participates in SNAP. USDA refused to release the data, and the paper filed suit in 2011.

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