Imposing SNAP Food Benefit Costs on States Would Worsen Hunger, Hurt States’ Ability to Meet Residents’ Needs

The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans seem poised to pursue substantial cuts to the nation’s primary food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — potentially putting millions of people in the U.S. at risk of not having enough to eat. Among the harmful proposals from Republican lawmakers so far is an emerging push to require states to pay a portion of SNAP food benefit costs for the first time to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest business owners and households.

Several recent news articles have reported that House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson plans to meet the budget resolution’s reconciliation instruction to cut at least $230 billion from Agriculture Committee programs through 2034 by making states pay for a portion of SNAP food assistance benefits.^[1] Since SNAP’s start in its current form nearly 50 years ago, the federal government has fully funded the cost of SNAP food benefits while states, which screen for eligibility and issue benefits, have paid roughly half of the cost of administering SNAP.

The specific details of how Republican leaders may be planning to force states to pay for part of SNAP food benefit costs are not public yet. But requiring states to pay even a modest portion of SNAP benefits would radically change the program’s funding structure, abandoning the long-standing national commitment to provide low-income households a SNAP benefit sufficient to afford a basic healthy diet, and undermining SNAP’s important role as an economic stimulus during recessions. This unfunded mandate would hit state budgets hard at a time when state finances are already highly strained. States could pass along some of the cost to counties and cities, either directly or indirectly.

Requiring a State Match Would Likely Reduce SNAP Benefits, Eligibility

Forcing states to help pay SNAP benefits would allow Congress to enact unpopular cuts while making someone else — state governments — either pay the difference or decide which participants lose food benefits.

Any low-income household that meets SNAP’s eligibility requirements and applies for benefits now receives a benefit amount that reflects their income and the cost of a healthy, affordable diet — regardless of which state they live in. But there’s no guarantee this would continue if states cannot come up with the funding to meet a cost-share requirement.

If states must cover a share of benefit costs, they would likely be forced to cut benefits, eligibility, or both to reduce costs. President Trump’s 2018 budget, which proposed a state match starting at 10 percent and ramping up to 25 percent of benefit costs over time, would have given states “new flexibility regarding benefit levels” to “help states manage their costs.”^[2] Even without explicit authority to cut benefits, states could also cut SNAP benefit costs and take food assistance away entirely from some households by dropping state options they have used to better meet their residents’ needs or by creating administrative hurdles that would make it harder for people to apply for and maintain eligibility.

It is unrealistic to assume that most or all states would be able to fully pay for the lost federal funds. In a state-federal matching program, federal funding is based on the amount of funding the state spends. But if states either cannot pay the full amount of a required match (or choose not to), they would need to cut the food assistance low-income people and families are receiving in their state.

To see why, consider a medium-sized state like Nevada or New Mexico where low-income households qualify for close to $1 billion in annual SNAP benefits under SNAP program rules — benefits currently fully funded with federal money.^[3] (See Figure 1.) If SNAP were converted to a match program where the state had to pay 10 percent of the cost of food benefits but could cut benefits to help meet the requirement:

• To maintain existing benefit levels, the state would need to provide $100 million a year. The federal government would pay the other $900 million. That would cost the federal government $100 million less than under current law.
• If, however, the state paid only three-quarters of that amount ($75 million) — still a sizable new expense for the state — it would need to take $250 million in food assistance away from families, a 25 percent cut. The impact is very large because of the way the match works — since states are required to pay for 10 percent of SNAP benefits, if the state were to put in $75 million, total benefits would be $750 million.
• If the state cut total benefits to $750 million, the federal share would fall to about $675 million (90 percent of $750 million) and the federal government would spend $325 million less than under current law.
• To illustrate what a 25 percent cut could look like, this hypothetical state could take away all benefits from 1 in every 4 SNAP participants (assuming they ended eligibility for people of different benefit levels equally), or more than 100,000 people; or they could reduce average SNAP benefits by 25 percent, from $6.40 per person per day, the national average under the Congressional Budget Office’s projections for 2026, to $4.80. Under such a benefit cut, an average household would lose more than $1,000 annually in food assistance benefits. The state could also cut SNAP food benefits by 25 percent through a combination of benefit and eligibility cuts.^[4]

Download Chart Share Chart on Facebook Share Chart on BlueSky Share Chart on X

Imagen

States Would Struggle to Cover New Costs

Mandating that states pay even a small share of SNAP food benefit costs would hit state budgets hard at a time when many states are facing revenue downturns. States must balance their budgets every year. To fund a portion of SNAP benefits, states would need to raise revenue, cut funding for other state-funded programs and services, cut SNAP benefit levels, restrict program eligibility, or some combination of these. The painful trade-offs that states would face would only be compounded if this proposal were combined with other Republican proposals to force sizable new costs on states, especially in Medicaid, but also in education, transportation, and other key public services.^[5]

States are not in a position to absorb these substantial additional costs. In fiscal year 2024, tax revenue fell in 40 states after adjusting for inflation, and many states are projecting budget shortfalls in the short and long term.^[6]

To illustrate the strain on state budgets that could be imposed by requiring states to pay even a relatively small share of SNAP benefit costs, consider that under a 10 percent cost-share requirement:

• Pennsylvania would have had to pay almost $427 million last year to ensure that families didn’t lose food benefits, which is about 1.5 times what that state spends on its entire community college system or about twice what it spends annually on environmental protection programs.
• Iowa would have had to pay almost $53 million last year, which is roughly equivalent to what that state spends annually on its agricultural department and in supporting efforts to help people access treatment for issues with addiction, combined.
• Kansas would have had to pay almost $41 million last year. That’s the equivalent of salary costs for about 725 of their public school teachers. It’s also more than double the state’s annual spending on its Office of Veterans Services or nearly all of what it spends on its state Bureau of Investigation.

A state match also would create substantial disparities among states. States with lower incomes and higher poverty rates would likely have a much harder time funding a share of SNAP benefit costs than wealthier states, exacerbating hardship for families in states that already struggle with high rates of food insecurity and poverty and low public investments.

This harm would be particularly acute during recessions. When the economy hits a downturn, states would have to find even more state dollars to meet the greater need as more people become eligible for SNAP — but would have to do so at the same time state revenues are declining. As a result, states would likely cut SNAP benefits at a time when they are needed even more.

That, in turn, would also undermine SNAP’s critical role as an economic stimulus. In a weak economy, every $1 in additional spending on SNAP benefits generates $1.54 in economic activity when households use their benefits to shop at grocery stores in their communities.^[7] But during a recession, when more families are eligible, most states would lack the funds needed to cover the rising cost of the matching rate for SNAP, undermining the program’s ability to act as an economic stimulus and hampering economic recovery.