Administration Won’t Spend All SNAP Funds It Says Are Available, Leading to Deep Benefit Cuts for Low-Income Households

The Trump Administration is only planning to release two-thirds of the SNAP funding it committed to spend to partially cover November benefits, a CBPP analysis has determined, cutting families’ benefits far more than necessary and shortchanging millions of families.

Moreover, issuing only partial benefits wasn’t necessary in the first place. The courts affirmed that the Administration could provide full benefits by transferring funds from other food assistance programs, as it has done twice to support WIC during the current government shutdown.

Following rulings from two federal judges late last week, the Administration committed to use all of SNAP’s multi-year contingency reserves to provide partial allotments to SNAP participants — the bare minimum required by the courts thus far. But our analysis of the contingency fund spending plan the Department of Agriculture (USDA) sent to states finds that only about $3 billion in SNAP benefits will be issued, which is about two-thirds of the $4.65 billion the Administration says is available.

As a result, all SNAP participants will receive even less than they should have, based on the available funds in SNAP’s contingency reserves, and many will receive no benefits at all:

• We estimate that average benefits will be cut by 61 percent, far more than the 43 percent cut needed to keep spending within the $4.65 billion in contingency funds available. (USDA estimates $8.2 billion would be needed for full November benefits.)
• This far exceeds the roughly 35 percent cut to maximum benefits we estimate would be necessary to make the 43 percent cut in total benefits needed to stay within the available contingency funding.
• Nearly 1.2 million SNAP households with roughly 4.9 million people — roughly 1 in 9 SNAP recipients — will receive zero benefits because their normal benefit amount is less than the planned benefit reduction. Only one- or two-person households receive a minimum benefit under SNAP rules, leaving some households with three or more members — which are primarily households with children — at risk of receiving nothing.
• Nearly 5.4 million households with one or two members will receive a minimum benefit of $12 for November. This appears to violate SNAP’s regulations, which require these households to receive the typical minimum benefit of $24 unless benefits are cancelled, suspended entirely, or reduced by more than 90 percent.

On November 4, USDA issued guidance to states directing them to reduce the maximum SNAP benefit for each household size. The guidance also directed states to reduce the minimum benefit, which only applies to households with 1 or 2 members, by 50 percent. Because of how the SNAP benefit calculation works, this 50 percent reduction in maximum and minimum benefits translates into a much deeper reduction in average and total benefits.

SNAP benefits are calculated by subtracting 30 percent of a household’s monthly net income from the maximum benefit for their household size. Households that have zero net income and receive the maximum SNAP benefit will experience a 50 percent cut under USDA’s plan. But most SNAP households have some income and receive less than the maximum benefit. For these households, a 50 percent reduction in the maximum benefit results in a deeper percentage cut to their SNAP benefits.

Consider the example of a single parent with two children:

• If this family had zero net income, they would typically receive the maximum benefit for a three-person household, which is $785 per month. Under USDA’s plan, they will receive the reduced maximum benefit of $392 — a 50 percent cut.
• If this family instead had $900 in monthly net income, they would typically receive $785 minus 30 percent of their net income, or $515 per month in SNAP benefits. But under USDA’s plan, they will receive only $122, based on the reduced maximum of $392 minus 30 percent of their net income. This will be a more than 75 percent cut to their benefit.
• If this family had $1,500 in monthly net income, they would typically receive $335 per month in SNAP benefits. They will receive $0 under USDA’s plan, because the reduction is larger than their typical benefit amount.

Providing partial benefits will be unprecedented and presents operational challenges for states. Due to the Administration’s decision not to provide full benefits, it will likely take states longer to get assistance to the families who need it to afford adequate food.

By cutting benefits even more deeply than necessary, the Administration — which previously argued (contrary to federal law and the Administration’s own prior practice) that SNAP’s contingency funds aren’t legally available to cover regular benefits — has once again gone out of its way to inflict further harm on low-income families.

Methodology:

CBPP conducted an analysis using the fiscal year 2023 SNAP Quality Control data, which includes detailed information on SNAP households’ income, household composition and expenses, and their resulting benefit levels under SNAP rules. Our modelling inflated income and expenses to fiscal year 2026 and recalculated SNAP benefit levels using this data under the reduced maximum and minimum allotments that the Administration provided to states.