Congress Must Address SNAP Cost Shift Before Even More Low-Income Families Lose Food Assistance

The number of people with low incomes participating in SNAP plummeted across the country after the Republican megabill (H.R. 1) enacted the deepest SNAP cuts in history last July. By December, 2.5 million fewer people were receiving food assistance nationwide, a 6 percent drop in just five months. But economic conditions didn’t improve over this period, indicating that people are losing SNAP because of harmful policy changes, not because they no longer need help affording groceries. And as H.R. 1 will soon require most states to start paying a share of SNAP food benefit costs, even more people, including working parents, children, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans, are expected to lose the food assistance they need to put food on the table.

Policymakers must urgently address this unfolding hunger crisis. At minimum, Congress should delay H.R. 1’s unprecedented cost shift to state budgets, which is already hurting struggling families and driving far deeper SNAP cuts than anticipated as states scramble to respond to this massive unfunded mandate.

Congress gave most states virtually no time to avoid these enormous new costs — and the clock is rapidly running out. In the first year, the percentage of benefits that each state must pay will be based on its SNAP “error rate” for either fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30, 2025, or for fiscal year 2026, meaning states have only a few more months to reduce their error rates. H.R. 1 also gives a few states with the very highest error rates up to two additional years before they face this cost-sharing requirement, unfairly punishing states with better payment accuracy.

From October 1, 2027, most states will be required to pay a share of SNAP food benefit costs for the first time, potentially totaling hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in new costs each year for the largest states. States, who must balance their budgets, will soon face painful trade-offs that would likely hurt struggling families: if they can’t fully cover these costs by raising taxes or cutting other services, they’ll need to further cut SNAP or potentially even withdraw from the program, terminating food assistance for all low-income people in the state.

The disruption to SNAP during the government shutdown last year and delay in clear implementation guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have already made administrative mistakes more likely. And with huge pressure to reduce costs and no time to decrease errors, some states are taking extreme measures that are restricting access to SNAP. Under H.R. 1, issuing SNAP benefits to an eligible family carries fiscal risks for states: if the state gives them too much or too little in benefits, its error rate — and the ensuing cost-sharing requirement — will go up. But under SNAP rules, delaying or denying benefits to eligible households doesn’t count as an “error.” In fact, limiting how many eligible people receive benefits will reduce a state’s direct costs; if the state ultimately must pay a share of benefits, it will be paying a percentage of a much smaller program that reaches far fewer people.

Arizona is the most striking example of how this harmful incentive is already causing huge numbers of low-income people to lose the food assistance they need. Since July, Arizona has seen a staggering 47 percent drop in SNAP participation after the state slashed staff while ramping up burdensome paperwork requirements for applicants. The result: many people have been unable to afford groceries after they were denied SNAP benefits for procedural reasons or have been waiting without food for months while the state works through processing backlogs.

Arizona may be an early warning sign, not an outlier. While other states have not yet seen such dire impacts, many are taking steps that seek to reduce errors but make it harder for eligible families to get and keep their SNAP benefits. For example, states such as Illinois and Georgia are now requiring most households to recertify their eligibility twice as often, putting families at risk of losing SNAP if they can’t navigate the additional red tape. Recertification is one of the top causes of “churn,” when a household is cut off SNAP but reenrolls within a few months — indicating they went without food assistance for paperwork reasons, despite being eligible.

Starting this October, H.R. 1 will also cut federal funding for states’ administrative costs in half, meaning other states may soon face staffing shortages, backlogs, and people waiting months without benefits. Ohio recently enacted legislation that will use state funds to fill only $12.5 million of the estimated $38 million hole this cut will create in county budgets next year, with an inequitable distribution formula that leaves counties with the largest populations — and the most households receiving SNAP — facing multi-million dollar shortfalls.

Federal lawmakers must act now to give states the time and resources they need to improve payment accuracy while protecting access to food assistance for eligible low-income households struggling to afford groceries. Congress should start by delaying the cost-sharing requirement for food benefits for all states — not just the states with the highest error rates — and postponing cuts to federal funding for states’ administrative costs. A bipartisan coalition representing governors, state legislatures, and other state and local officials is calling on Congress to do just that. 

But Congress must work to eventually repeal this untenable cost shift altogether. Payment accuracy is an important measure of SNAP’s performance, but a program isn’t successful if it’s highly accurate while failing to reach those who need it. It’s not successful if it requires participants to spend hours navigating paperwork hurdles, trying to get through on overloaded phone lines, or taking time off work to visit social services offices during business hours — all to receive an average of about $6 per person per day to buy groceries. And SNAP certainly won’t be successful if the cost shift drives some states to end the program altogether, eliminating food assistance entirely for children, workers in low-paying jobs, veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, and others who need SNAP to afford their basic needs.