Rockford Sun

About 69,091 Metro Rockford residents – or about 24.1 percent of the region’s population – were on food stamp rolls in January 2017, according to a Rockford Sun analysis of 66 Illinois welfare offices.

Winnebago County serves 3.7 percent of Illinois food stamp recipients, according to data obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. That’s slightly higher than the portion of the state’s population the county represents. About 2.24 percent of the 12.8 million people in Illinois reside in Winnebago County.

Illinois welfare offices are operated by the Illinois Department of Human Services, formerly known as the Illinois Department of Public Aid. It administers SNAP at offices in 52 of the state’s 102 counties, so residents in a county without an office would travel to one with an office. 

Those 52 counties account for about 92 percent of the state’s population. This may, in part, account for why the portion SNAP participants in a given county is higher than the portion of Illinois residents living in that county.

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Breakdown of food stamp recipients in Metro Rockford

Office location	County population	Recipients population January 2017	County as portion of state population	County recipients as portion of state SNAP participants
Winnebago	287,078	69,091	2.24%	3.70%

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture