Republicans expanded SNAP work requirements. Democrats and food security advocates worry the changes will cause people to go hungry.
SNAP benefit changes will have a ‘ripple effect’ at local grocery stores
Leaders at Forest Park’s Living Fresh Market say recent changes to SNAP benefits are increasing fear and uncertainty for struggling families.
Fox – 32 Chicago
Angelina Guatemala, 64, relied on federal food stamps after retiring from various jobs in Ogden, Kansas, arranging flowers, decorating cakes and preparing meals several years ago.
But changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) rules that Congress adopted last year will require her to return to work 20 hours a week to help buy food. She said finding work in her small community is difficult because her painful dermatitis makes it difficult to hold things in her hands or stand for long periods of time. Without SNAP, she stretches her meals.
“I’m a rice and beans eater, so I’m fine today. I’m not picky,” Guatemala told USA TODAY. “If we can get chicken, we can stretch it out for a couple of days, but right now we don’t have anything.”
SNAP enrollment has fallen by 10% since Congressional Republicans expanded work and documentation requirements in a bill signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. Reactions are divided on whether the reduction in the number of people receiving food benefits by 4 million people is a cause for concern or a cause for celebration.
The White House pushed for tighter work requirements as well as a reduction in immigrant participation. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who oversees SNAP, called the change a “celebration of labor.”
But Democratic lawmakers and food security advocates called the cuts “incredibly alarming” and said the changes “crippled what was already a bad system.”
“It’s really unconscionable,” Krista Hessdorfer, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group Hunger Solutions New York, told USA TODAY about the bill. “When families lose food assistance, they are forced to make impossible choices about how to spend their limited resources: Should I buy groceries this week, or should I pay rent, pay my utility bill, or pick up a prescription?”
Advocates say low-income families’ budgets have been especially tight due to soaring food, housing and utility costs since the pandemic. The New York Fed recently reported that “food insecurity has increased significantly, especially among low- and moderate-income households and households with young children.”
About 1 in 8 Americans received SNAP benefits before work changes
When Congress tightened work rules last year, more than 42 million people (about 1 in 8 Americans) participated in SNAP, receiving an average of $188 a month to buy food, according to the USDA. But the bill is projected to cut federal spending by $187 billion over 10 years by expanding work requirements and requiring states to contribute more.
The program expanded during the Great Recession, increasing from 28 million participants in 2008 to a peak of 47 million in 2014. The number of participants waxes and wanes depending on the economy, dropping to 35 million in 2019.
SNAP was the focus of last year’s 43-day government shutdown because millions of people depended on it. Congress finally approved funding for SNAP and other agencies on Nov. 12.
However, many states had already begun to tighten eligibility rules, creating confusion about the new rules and funding.
“I think it’s very concerning that so many people are leaving the program,” Haley Kotler, who works on hunger issues at the Kansas advocacy group Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, told USA TODAY. “We’ve never seen this before.”
“Jumping Through Hoops” in SNAP Work Requirements
SNAP requires participants to work 20 hours a week in paid or unpaid work, training, or volunteer work. This law expanded who must work and what documentation they must provide.
Work requirements previously stopped at age 55, but the law extends them to age 64. Participants with children up to the age of 18 were exempt, but the policy was changed to include those with children under the age of 14. Advocates say states can no longer waive work rules for recipients who live in areas with high rates of homelessness and unemployment.
The bill also required additional labor and income documentation for participation, despite proponents’ claims that states already collect large amounts of documentation.
In Kansas, for example, recipients must fill out a 30-page application with 200 questions to receive the benefits, which cost about $150 a month, said Kotler of the Appleseed Center.
“People are already jumping through hoops to get the food they need,” Kotler said. “Having any more restrictions or requirements on the program creates real challenges.”
Advocates say SNAP participants have reported trouble submitting paperwork for things like unpaid work and paying rent to relatives. Advocates say state workers processing documents were maxed out before the strict rules and are now processing more documents.
The bill was “introduced at a point where we were trying to cripple an already bad system,” Gina Plata Nino, director of SNAP at the advocacy group Center for Food Research and Action, told USA TODAY. “It just clogged the system, for lack of a better word.”
Marcus Moore, an activist with New York’s Safety Net Activists, whose members have experience with homelessness, poverty and public benefits, kept his SNAP benefits after demanding a hearing after being threatened with losing about $90 a month in aid over additional documentation required for volunteer work.
“It’s a big mess,” Moore, 54, told USA TODAY. “It definitely would have fallen through the cracks.”
Moore, who has been homeless during the pandemic, said losing food assistance was devastating.
“We’re really going to be in survival mode, just like we were during the pandemic,” Moore said. “There weren’t enough soup kitchens in the city.”
Moving to a state increases SNAP costs
The obijime is not finished yet.
Starting Oct. 1, states will have to cover 50% to 75% of the program’s administrative costs. Democrats and food advocates worry that states will cut food benefits to pay for increased administrative costs.
Another change, starting by October 1, 2027, would require most states to pay up to 15% of the food benefits currently covered by the federal government based on errors of overpayment or underpayment. For New York, that could mean $1.2 billion.
States began implementing the new rules on October 1, 2025, but some states received exemptions that delayed the start for their citizens by several months.
As of February, the most recent month for which data is available, Arizona had the steepest decline in recipients in the U.S., with nearly half retiring. The number of participants fell from 892,565 in July to 448,976 in February, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The second largest decrease was in North Carolina at 18.6%. According to the department, Florida, Georgia and Nevada each saw a decline of about 15%.
Kotler said Kansas is losing sleep because more than 23,000 people, or more than 12%, have left the roster.
Republicans decry fraud, Democrats worry about hunger
SNAP’s new rules remain a topic of debate in Congress.
At a House Agriculture Committee hearing on June 4, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) noted that officials had discovered 450,000 false Social Security numbers and nearly 200,000 benefits paid in the names of deceased beneficiaries. Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Mississippi) said “fraud and abuse were rampant in some areas” and “deprived us of what was rightfully ours.”
But Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said “hunger is getting worse” and that SNAP benefits, which average $2 per meal, aren’t enough to buy a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.
“They weren’t kicked out of SNAP. They were kicked out of SNAP,” McGovern said. “We should all be ashamed of that.”
The White House announced on June 10 that since President Trump signed the bill, there has been a “sharp decline” in food stamp dependence for 4.3 million participants.
Mr. Rollins acknowledged the effectiveness of the government’s crackdown on fraud and recipients who are not legally allowed to enter the country, as well as the new rules. This law abolished legal refugee and asylum seeker status.
Rollins said federal authorities arrested 900 people last year for SNAP fraud and recovered $132 million in compensation.
“Restoring the integrity of these programs, including SNAP, is very, very important to this administration and the USDA,” Rollins said. “And this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Rollins told senators that no one has been kicked out of SNAP, but adults without young children must work or volunteer.
“No one in Washington or America wants to see their families go hungry,” Rollins said. “Today we have more people working than ever before. This is a celebration of labor and the dignity of work, and wages are higher than ever before.”
