Published January 9, 2025

Congress passed H.R. 1, also known as the budget reconciliation law, on July 4, 2025, making sweeping changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The cuts to SNAP will be devastating to the health and well-being of millions of people, including children, older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, and communities. The impact will not end in grocery aisles and household kitchens; cuts to SNAP will have far-reaching negative consequences for school meals and other child nutrition programs.  

Cuts to SNAP Increase Childhood Hunger  

Children who participate in SNAP are automatically eligible for other federal nutrition assistance benefits, such as free school meals, the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program (Summer EBT), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Cutting children’s access to SNAP will sever their direct link to these programs, increasing paperwork burdens on families and administrative agencies and threatening children’s access to the nutritious foods they need to grow and develop. 

Act Now to Mitigate the Harm of H.R.1  

Congress must act swiftly to repeal the harmful provisions in H.R. 1 and ensure that children and their families have access to the nutrition they need to live healthy lives. Here are five steps to take:  
 

  1. Urge Congress to repeal SNAP cuts: Congress must act now to restore SNAP, protect child nutrition, and recommit to building a nation free from hunger. Join FRAC on January 15, 2026, in a national #StopThatSNAPShift Day of Action by getting vocal on social, tagging your Members of Congress, and urging them to include a provision to mitigate the SNAP cost shift to states in the next appropriations bill and support The Restoring Food Security for American Families and Farmers Act of 2025. 
  2. Conduct robust and comprehensive direct certification this school year: Children in SNAP households are automatically linked to free school meals through a process known as direct certification. School districts are strongly encouraged to conduct robust and comprehensive direct certification throughout the 2025–2026 school year to identify eligible children in order to protect children’s access to free school meals and support schools’ ability to offer all students school meals at no charge through the Community Eligibility Provision.  
  3. Expand children’s access to school breakfast, summer, and afterschool meals: As SNAP cuts limit families’ food resources and cause household hunger to rise, children will become more dependent on the nutrition provided through school meals and other child nutrition programs. Schools and communities must collaborate to increase children’s access to school breakfast, summer, and afterschool meals. Visit FRAC.org for resources on school breakfast expansion strategies and best practices for increasing participation in summer meals, Summer EBT, and afterschool meals.  
  4. Remove barriers for families to apply for WIC: Through a mechanism known as adjunctive eligibility, families who participate in SNAP automatically meet the income requirement for WIC. This means that families participating in SNAP do not have to provide proof of income when applying for WIC, helping to streamline the process for both families and the WIC agency.  As families’ application barriers increase due to losing SNAP, states and partners should consider ways they could improve outreach efforts and streamline certification for eligible families, such as partnering with trusted health care providers, strengthening automatic eligibility determinations, simplifying documentation requirements, and providing temporary certification periods, among others.  
  5. Promote the importance of child nutrition programs: Child nutrition programs provide a lifeline for children and families in every community across the country. School, summer, and afterschool meals reduce hunger, and support children’s learning, health, and well-being. The importance of child nutrition programs cannot be overstated, and it is imperative that our friends, families, neighbors, and policymakers understand the value of child nutrition programs and what is at stake when children lose access to the nutrition they need to thrive.  

 

Read FRAC’s Policy Brief on How SNAP Cuts Affect Child Nutrition Programs To gain deeper insight into H.R. 1’s harmful effect on child nutrition programs and what advocates and partners can do to help mitigate harm, read FRAC’s newly released policy brief Cuts to SNAP Threaten the Child Nutrition Programs.  

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