The president’s proposed budget reflects a clear set of priorities, and those priorities come at the direct expense of federal programs that help millions of Americans meet their basic needs and achieve economic stability.
Over the past year, SNAP participation has declined by approximately 3.3 million people. This is neither a neutral correction nor evidence that fewer Americans need help affording food. It is the predictable outcome of a set of deliberate policy choices advanced by the Trump administration and a majority of Republicans in Congress — choices that systematically reduce access to the program, increase administrative burden, and shift responsibility away from the federal government and onto states, localities, and ultimately families themselves.
The budget reconciliation law, also referred to as H.R. 1,, marks a significant departure from the longstanding structure of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), one of the federal government’s most effective tools for reducing hunger and promoting economic stability. The law weakens multiple components of the critical support system shifts substantial financial responsibility from the federal government to states, and fundamentally alters SNAP’s financing model. Most notably, it requires states, for the first time in the program’s history, to cover a share of SNAP food benefit costs rather than limiting their contributions to administrative expenses.