The budget reconciliation law, H.R. 1, imposes the most severe cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in its history. Its impact is already measurable: More than 2.5 million people have lost access to benefits. These losses are yet the beginning as the law dramatically expands administrative burdens on state agencies. Beyond the policy changes it makes to the program, it introduces two major cost shifts. First, it reduces the federal share of administrative funding from 50 percent to 25 percent, forcing states to absorb 75 percent of costs. States are already responding by freezing hiring or laying off staff, precisely when agencies must implement complex new requirements. Second, the law ties state financial penalties to payment error rates, pushing states to prioritize error reduction under constrained capacity, directly affecting SNAP access.
The proposed House Farm Bill provides no meaningful avenue to restore or strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Instead, it advances provisions that weaken long‑standing statutory protections by undermining merit‑based staffing requirements and opening the door to privatization. Section 4103, titled “SNAP Staffing Flexibility,” if approved, will amend Section 11 of the Food and Nutrition Act (7 U.S.C. § 2020) to authorize states to contract with private entities to perform SNAP certification and other core administrative functions. As the Farm Bill heads to a floor vote, advocates should stay informed and actively oppose the current proposal.
Recent efforts by some policymakers are seeking to attack the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payment error threshold provision, which has proven to be a pivotal quality control policy and has been validated by bipartisan support and administrations.