The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, has been one of the United States’ most effective anti-hunger programs in modern memory. This federal initiative has resourced over 40 million low-income Americans with electronic benefit transfer cards, which can then be used to purchase fruits, vegetables, dairy, and other basic food items.
With the July 4 passing of the expansive One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), many federal programs— SNAP included— now have to navigate through more arduous frameworks in order to carry out their purposes. With SNAP being responsible for providing millions with healthy goods, understanding its future under OBBBA is indispensable to American health policy.
Like with Medicaid, OBBBA standardizes work requirements in order to qualify for SNAP. Specifically, adults between the ages of 18 and 64 must report a minimum of 80 hours per month to retain eligibility, with few exemptions. Those who are not exempt include homeless people or young adults who recently aged out of foster care.
The philosophy of this work requirement is to encourage low-income Americans to find employment rather than benefit solely from federal programs. However, unemployment appears to be much more nuanced than manipulating a system: some individuals live in rural areas, which may not be as rich with job opportunities and may demand distant commutes that are difficult to maintain for those without vehicles; others may face debilitating health concerns, but also not be classified as medically frail enough to get an exemption for the requirement. Even by design, SNAP already holds provisions to account for potential exploitations of itself; benefits gradually decrease as income rises among qualifiers, allowing SNAP beneficiaries to still receive aid while also improving their financial status. Admittedly, SNAP has been criticized for having abrupt benefit reductions at certain arbitrary thresholds, but the idea of incremental benefit reduction still applies to many eligible recipients— in other words, there is reason to doubt the rationale behind implementing a SNAP work requirement.
Nevertheless, those who do not meet these work requirements but otherwise meet all other prior requirements may only have three months of SNAP benefits remaining over the next three years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 1.4 million people will lose their SNAP eligibility per month as a consequence of OBBBA, and if the country keeps trending towards the shrinkage of SNAP and other federal programs, that figure could easily rise.
As part of the far-reaching bill, there is also increased emphasis on state funding of the food assistance program. Of course, states have their own financial responsibilities, and introducing more funding burdens for federal programs like SNAP inevitably beckons efforts to reduce the money they require. States can do this by adding additional restrictions to SNAP so that fewer people can benefit from it or by simply making the program less comprehensive.
With new policies, SNAP is becoming less of the anti-hunger force it once was. Pair OBBBA with the recent government shutdown— where the United States Department of Agriculture issued notices to state agencies to warn of postponed November SNAP benefits— even those that fully qualify for SNAP may not receive their benefits on time. Consider that some seven million Americans are unemployed— presumably a demographic of the Americans struggling the most— and on their employment status alone, they’re ineligible for food stamps. If the United States is waging war against hunger, it is unequivocally losing ground.
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