Published March 20, 2026
Seismic Changes in Anti-Hunger Programs
Across the U.S., the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an economic mobility engine for struggling families and a cornerstone of national public health, economic resilience, and anti-poverty policy. More than 42 million people rely on SNAP each month, including over 16 million children.
At the same time, state and local governments are entering one of the most fiscally constrained periods since the Great Recession. Nearly 23 states are already in a recession or at high risk of entering one, underscoring that economic strain is not isolated but widespread across every region of the country. Against this backdrop, recent federal policy changes have placed unprecedented pressure on state budgets and threaten the sustainability of SNAP nationwide.
Under the July 2025 budget reconciliation law (H.R. 1/OBBBA) structural changes and reductions in the program increase administrative costs (October 2026), financial liability for the states (October 2027), while expanded SNAP time-limits requirements for certain populations are taking effect now. There are additional cuts to the program that impact benefit adequacy and increase administrative burden to states. These changes arrive as state fiscal cushions are shrinking, compounding risk and limiting states’ ability to absorb new federal cost shifts without cutting services elsewhere.
What Changed?
The Food Stamp Program was expanded nationwide in 1974 and has evolved through major legislative changes, including significant reforms in 1977 and its renaming to SNAP in 2008, to become the modern Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Historically, the federal government has covered 100 percent of SNAP benefit costs with states paying 50 percent of administrative costs. Under H.R.1, beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2028, states with SNAP error rates that are at or above the 6 percent threshold set by the federal government will be required to share part of the cost of SNAP benefits — potentially amounting to large fiscal obligations for some states.
SNAP Structural Changes in States
A. Cost shifts to states: Starting in FY 2027, states must cover 75 percent of SNAP administrative costs, up from 50 percent today. By FY 2028, states will also begin paying for SNAP benefits, tied to their “payment error rates.” This upends SNAP’s long-standing structure — state and federal partnership — and leaves states exposed to volatile new costs.
B. Eroded benefits: SNAP benefits will no longer be adjusted to keep pace with food inflation. Internet expenses can no longer be factored into benefit calculations; only older adults and people with disabilities can automatically claim the full standard utility allowance if they are receiving fuel assistance. Additionally, SNAP-Ed nutrition education was defunded.
C. Expanded time limits: All adults ages 18–64 must document 20 hours of work every week to receive SNAP, unless they meet an exemption. This includes parents and caregivers of children 14 years old and older, veterans, youth aging out of foster care, and unhoused individuals.
D. Restrictions on noncitizen eligibility. Humanitarian-based noncitizens, such as refugees, asylees, and trafficking survivors, have lost their SNAP eligibility. This change represents a stark and unprecedented departure from America’s long-standing, bipartisan commitment to supporting individuals fleeing violence, persecution, and human trafficking.
The State Challenge — Balancing Budgets and Absorbing Costs
The federal changes enacted under H.R. 1 will disrupt, if not completely upend, many states’ abilities to meet the needs of children and families in their state and their responsibilities to maintain a balanced budget.
The National Governor’s Association has warned that shifting federal financial obligations, especially in large entitlement programs, creates fiscal volatility and trade-offs that state budgets are not designed to absorb. Notably, 44 states enacted their current annual or biennial state budget on July 1, 2025, prior to the passage of H.R. 1., leaving little opportunity to plan for these new costs. State fiscal capacity is already weakening. After years of rapid growth, expansion of state rainy day funds slowed in fiscal year 2024. States are now drawing down ending balances — their leftover budget dollars — at the fastest rate since 2017, eroding the fiscal cushion needed to respond to economic shocks. Nine states — Tennessee, Florida, New York, Missouri, Washington, Delaware, Rhode Island, Illinois, and New Jersey — hold rainy day funds equivalent to less than one month of expenditures.
Looking ahead, state revenue growth is expected to remain weak. Pew’s November 2025 analysis finds that states face an increasingly uncertain fiscal outlook shaped by state-level tax changes and major federal policy actions. Pew further warns that the largest structural risks to state budgets will emerge in future years as federal cost-sharing for key programs diminishes.
As states begin preparing fiscal year 2027 budgets, they face limited new revenue, an uncertain economic outlook, and significant changes in the federal-state fiscal relationship. As Tim Storey of the National Conference of State Legislatures cautions, “There’s a big storm coming for state budgets. The radar is clear, and it’s going to hit almost every state.”
Recent state actions illustrate the scale of this challenge. Colorado convened a special legislative session in August 2025 to close a $750 million budget gap through tax increases, one-time funds, and more than $100 million in budget cuts, including reductions affecting Medicaid providers. Nebraska projects budget gaps of approximately $360 million in fiscal year 2027 and $300 million in fiscal year 2028, while Kansas anticipates baseline deficits of $367 million and $302 million in those same years. In South Dakota, Medicaid spending now exceeds K–12 education in the fiscal year 2027 budget, leaving state leaders openly questioning which essential services can absorb cuts.
States do not have the same policy toolkit for financing social net programs as the federal government. It’s important to recognize some of the key limitations at the state level that will drive decision-making in how to absorb and adapt to the federal SNAP changes in H.R. 1, including the following:
Balanced-budget requirements: Unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets each fiscal cycle. Any unexpected cost increases must be offset with spending cuts, revenue increases, or both. This makes states ill-equipped to deal with recessions, when economic pressures create higher social spending needs and lower revenues.
Cost predictability: States plan multiyear budgets based on predictable federal matches and steady obligations. When federal policy reduces support or changes cost-sharing formulas, states face difficult budgeting decisions mid-cycle. This issue cascades into local government spending as institutions like cities, counties, and schools that rely on state funding must adjust to changes in spending to accommodate mid-cycle adjustments.
Program trade-offs: Increased obligations in one policy area, like SNAP administration, can have a crowding out effect on other priorities, ranging from child care, higher education workforce development, and public health.
For states that operate tight fiscal margins, even modest shifts in administrative responsibility or exposure to penalties can translate into substantial budget cuts or delays elsewhere, impacting basic needs services.
Dollars, Sense, and Human Consequences
If provisions in H.R. 1 are not changed, many states will face hundreds of millions of dollars in new obligations at a time of acute fiscal strain. For some states, this exposure will be untenable, forcing choices between raising taxes, cutting core services, scaling back SNAP, or exiting the program entirely, which would lead to the loss of one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the U.S.
The result of these fiscal pressures would reverberate through local economies. SNAP is a proven economic engine, generating up to $1.80 in economic activity for every dollar invested, and sustaining grocery retailers — particularly in rural and low-income communities with thin margins. Reductions in SNAP participation would accelerate store closures, job losses, and declines in local and state tax revenue. At the household level, the consequences are immediate and severe. SNAP is one of the nation’s most effective tools for reducing food insecurity, lowering it by up to 30 percent. When federal disinvestment shifts costs to states, families experience hunger, children’s health and development suffer, and long-term economic mobility is undermined.
What States Should Be Asking for Now
State legislators and governors must urgently engage their Members of Congress to ensure federal policymakers fully understand their state budget realities and the downstream consequences of these cost shifts.
The primary ask is clear: Congress should withdraw the SNAP benefit cost-sharing and administrative cost-shift provisions altogether. At a minimum, Congress must apply parity and equity in policies. If lawmakers believe states need time to adjust, any delay in benefit cost-sharing must apply to all states, not only a narrow subset with exceptionally high error rates. States working in good faith to improve accuracy should receive the same planning runway as others, while also preparing for higher administrative costs and new obligations.
Specifically, states should press Congress and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to:
1.Provide transparency and due process in USDA’s quality control and payment error rate methodology, including clear disclosure of statistical assumptions and calculations that trigger fiscal penalties.
2. Invest in modernized eligibility systems that reduce administrative burden and error risk.
3. Coordinate federal-state policy design to ensure alignment with states’ balanced budget requirements and responsibilities to deliver efficient services and benefits.
Without corrective action, federal cost shifts will not improve program integrity — they will destabilize state budgets, weaken local economies, and increase hunger nationwide.
SNAP Matters
SNAP is central to reducing hunger and strengthening economic stability in communities in states across the U.S. As H.R. 1 reshapes the landscape of how SNAP is administered and funded, state leaders have a shared stake in ensuring federal policy protects children and families. Further, we must find innovative approaches, efficiencies, and common-sense approaches to modernizing the nation’s social benefits programs without saddling states with unmanaged fiscal risk and increasing hunger and suffering in communities throughout the country.
When children and families are healthy, food is secure, and state budgets are stable, all communities thrive.
Action Needed Now: On March 5, the House Agriculture Committee advanced the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026—a bill that fails to reverse $187 billion in SNAP cuts enacted under H.R. 1. The bill now heads toward full House consideration. FRAC is working to stop this harmful bill and ensure Members vote no if it reaches the floor. Advocates must act immediately: contact your state delegation, governor, and budget officer, and ask them to reach out to their congressional colleagues and demand that no Farm Bill move forward without SNAP relief. Schedule meetings with your Members of Congress and urge them to protect and strengthen SNAP.