With the government shutdown ended and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program assured through September 2026, millions of Americans are about to start getting regular food aid again.
But the strain on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program isn’t going to let up entirely, and more of the burden is about to shift to the states.
The reconciliation package — the sweeping bill passed by Republicans last summer — has set in motion some of the most significant changes to SNAP in decades. The law expands work requirements, restricts eligibility for certain immigrant groups and forces states to shoulder most of the program’s administrative costs.
“The changes and cuts to SNAP, approved by the Republican Congress and signed by President Trump, will undermine the program’s foundation and significantly increase state and local costs. They will also reduce benefits to SNAP households, making it even more difficult for New Yorkers to purchase essential food at a time when food prices are up, and household budgets are already stretched thin,” Nicolette Simmonds, a spokesperson for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, told NOTUS in a statement.
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States are already taking steps to try to prepare for this. In Massachusetts, for example, Gov. Maura Healey created a statewide Anti-Hunger Task Force in direct response to the changes. The thinking is that it will help offset the effect of the federal cuts with state resources and coordination among food assistance organizations.
“There are changes that will cause some people to lose all their benefits, and some people to lose some of their benefits. There’s changes that are going to place additional burden on the state, where they’re going to have to cover additional administrative costs and potentially partial costs of the benefits that are provided, which is the first time that’s ever been required,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, told NOTUS.
And some of those changes are starting to take effect.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which did not respond to a request for comment, said it was unable to do much operationally on SNAP during the shutdown, even pushing back on using contingency funds to keep the program afloat. Still, in that period the department directed agencies to start enforcing one of its new rules to comply with the reconciliation package.
“Following the OBBB, some alien groups previously eligible for SNAP are no longer eligible,” the USDA said in a memo issued on Oct. 31, directing state agencies to immediately begin implementing new eligibility requirements aimed at excluding people with certain legal immigration statuses.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that at least 90,000 people would become ineligible for SNAP benefits monthly due to this new requirement.
But it’s not the only change that will take a toll on eligibility.
Under the reconciliation package, work requirements have been expanded to apply to all able-bodied adults without dependents.
Most adults under the age of 64 will now be required to submit documentation proving they are working, volunteering, or in a training program for at least 80 hours per month. These expanded SNAP work requirements will now also apply to veterans, individuals experiencing homelessness and former foster youth.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat from New York, called the changes “horrendous.”
“The idea is, oh, they’re late with your application, or your application was incomplete — and people will go without the support they need to feed their families,” she said. “It’s going to be a real financial burden to every state, every municipality.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 5 to 6 million people are at risk of losing “some amount of SNAP” benefits because of the expansion of work requirements.
“They’re betting on people not filling out the paperwork right,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, the state with the highest reliance on the SNAP program in the country, told NOTUS. “They’re kicking people off because they missed a deadline, because they checked the wrong box. Let’s make sure we give people the help so that they comply with the requirements.”
New Mexico state officials told NOTUS that about 55,750 New Mexicans will become subject to the new rules, and roughly 20,000 may lose food benefits entirely by April 2026 if they fail to meet the new federal criteria.
New Mexico asked the USDA for a federal waiver to temporarily suspend requiring able-bodied individuals to provide proof of employment in areas with high unemployment. The waiver was granted, but it expires at the end of the year.
The fight over SNAP funding that played out during the shutdown is raising concern about how this will play out.
“I’m concerned in general that this administration, over the last two and a half months, has shown during the shutdown that they’re willing to do things that are not only confusing and make it difficult to administer the program, but unlawful, including withholding funding,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury told NOTUS. “I don’t have any confidence in this administration and their execution on the program, and we’re going to be watching it closely.”
The USDA directed states to begin implementing the expanded work requirements at the start of November, even though it’s unclear how state agencies will do that.
The reconciliation bill also cuts back on how much funding is given to each state to administer the program. Guidance from the USDA stating the provision “reduces the amount that USDA may pay a state agency for administrative costs involved in its operation of SNAP to 25%, from the current 50%, beginning in fiscal year 2027.”
Those changes are expected to go into effect as soon as next September and are part of the reconciliation package’s goal to cut the SNAP program by at least $187 billion by 2034.
“It is completely antithetical to, on the one hand, implement new, very burdensome, complicated rules for eligibility, and on the other hand, take resources away from states that they would need to implement such eligibility rules,” said Kyle Ross, a policy analyst at Center for American Progress.
NOTUS reached out to 13 agencies with some of the highest recipient reliance on the SNAP program across the country to understand how they were planning to adopt and implement the new requirements, as well as how they were notifying their recipients if their benefits had changed.
“The uncertainty and confusion surrounding SNAP benefits that has spread across the country is unfair to the over one million Michigan residents that rely on these benefits to put food on the table and support their families,” said a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the only agency to respond. “We will continue to do everything we can to assist those in need.”
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The City.
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