The purposes of this research were to explore the characteristics of households with children that joined SNAP after substantial changes were made to the program in the early stages of the pandemic and to learn how the changes affected food purchases. The research team used household-based scanner data to assess demographic characteristics and food purchase expenditures by category of food across households with children that (1) participated in SNAP in 2019 and 2020, (2) joined SNAP in 2020, or (3) were income-eligible nonparticipants. This brief describes how the findings from this research relate to the literature on why eligible households might not participate in SNAP, even with what is known about the benefits of the program on food and nutrition security.