House Republicans Reportedly Planning to Shift Billions in SNAP Costs to States

House Agriculture Committee Republicans reportedly are likely to propose shifting billions of dollars in benefit costs in SNAP — which provides food assistance to more than 40 million children, parents, workers, disabled individuals, seniors, veterans, and others — to states for the first time as part of upcoming fast-track “reconciliation” legislation.

One proposal in play, according to Politico, would phase in a requirement that states pay 22.5 percent of SNAP food benefit costs over the next decade. While it is unclear when this cost shift would begin or how quickly it would ramp up, we estimate a 22.5 percent requirement would impose $23.65 billion in new costs on state budgets in 2034 alone, the first year the proposal would be fully phased in. Such an enormous cost shift would come on top of the billions of dollars in Medicaid costs that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering shifting to states as part of the same fast-track process.

States are required to balance their budgets each year, so taking on any additional costs would require them to raise an equal amount of revenue or cut funding for other programs and services that people rely on. Because states likely wouldn’t be able to fully fill in the dramatic hole in federal SNAP funding this proposal would create, they would need to take away some or all of people’s food assistance, leaving many low-income households unable to afford groceries.

According to press reports, some House Republicans understand that taking needed food assistance away from people would harm a broad swath of households, including millions of people in both red and blue states and in urban, rural, and suburban communities. Indeed, some have apparently suggested that because these cuts would be deeply damaging and unpopular, they should be enacted this year, but implementation should not begin until after the 2026 or even 2028 elections.

Delaying implementation might temporarily hide the impacts of the cuts from voters, but a policy that is deeply harmful if implemented now will still be deeply harmful if implemented later.

The table below shows how much each state would have to pay, once the federal cuts were fully phased in, to make up for the federal cut and avoid cutting back needed food assistance.