‘Big Beautiful Bill’: Threats to SNAP, school meals, and more

The One Big Beautiful Big Act (OBBBA), the Republican reconciliation bill, was signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025. The bill makes sweeping changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to fund extensive tax cuts which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. Here's how those changes will strain state budgets and reduce access to food assistance programs.

The OBBBA cuts federal funding for SNAP, straining state budgets

The OBBA cuts federal funding for SNAP by $186 billion through 2034, which is the largest cut to SNAP in the history of the program. Prior to the OBBBA, the states and the federal government equally split state administrative SNAP costs. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) states will pay 75 percent of administrative costs. But the added burden on state budgets doesn't end there.

Since the program's inception, SNAP has operated as an entitlement program, meaning anyone who qualifies is entitled to receive benefits, regardless of the program's overall cost or budget. However, starting in FY28, due to a change in the OBBBA, those benefit costs will be shifted away from the federal government and over to states, further straining state budgets. States will need to pay a share of SNAP food benefits ranging from five to 15 percent depending on their FY25 or FY26 payment error rate.

Payment errors are largely unintentional mistakes by state agencies or families, and a rigorous quality control process ensures that errors are minimized. States with an error rate of six percent or higher must pay five percent of benefit costs, with the state's share increasing up to 15 percent as its payment error rate increases. All states, with the exception of South Dakota, have had an error rate above six percent at some point in the last two decades. Were error rates to be similar to FY24, we could expect 42 states, including the District of Columbia, to face at least a five percent cost-shift. Instead of assisting states in lowering their error rates, the OBBBA cuts administrative funding and punishes states for such mistakes. These impacts will be felt across the country, from conservative states like Oklahoma to more liberal states like Connecticut.

Senate Republicans added a carve-out to the cost-share, allowing states with the highest error rates, such as Alaska, Tennessee, and New Jersey, to delay cost-sharing until FY29 or FY30, but states can only delay once. Ironically, this exemption incentivizes states to maintain high error rates to delay the hit to their budgets, instead of improving them.

Food insecurity will spike as states face tough choices to pay for SNAP

In Texas and New York, a five percent benefit match equates to $358 million and $366 million, respectively, while a 15 percent benefit match equates to $1.07 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. Most states are required to pass balanced budgets, meaning they cannot carry over a deficit into the next year, unlike the federal government. States may thus be forced to drum up the money by increasing taxes, cutting other parts of their budgets (such as education and transportation, which are largely funded by states), or restricting SNAP eligibility and enrollment to reduce their total cost. If states can't afford the benefit costs, they could terminate SNAP in their state. States are already proposing cuts to programs, claiming uncertainty around the impact of the SNAP cost-shift on their budgets. Cuts to SNAP will worsen food security for one in eight Americans, including one in five children, who rely on SNAP for access to food.

The risk of these cuts will rise during recessions, when state budgets are especially strained and SNAP costs are highest (due to the program's counter-cyclical nature).

The OBBBA indirectly harms child nutrition programs

Children who lose their SNAP benefits will lose their automatic eligibility for free school meals and Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (S-EBT). As a result, childhood hunger could skyrocket, detrimentally impacting children's health and development.

School meals

The OBBBA will reduce access to school meal programs (school breakfast and lunch) by reducing the number of children who qualify via direct certification and impacting schools participating in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Children whose households participate in SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Medicaid (in some states) are automatically eligible to receive free meals at school. This process, called direct certification, streamlines the process for low-income children to receive free school meals for which they would already be qualified. Direct certification is efficient-it reduces paperwork burden and case processing time for program administrators. The SNAP cost-shift, along with SNAP and Medicaid work requirement provisions in the OBBBA, will result in fewer kids directly certified for free school meals. These changes re-introduce barriers for eligible families and create administrative paperwork burdens for school nutrition directors trying to provide low-income kids with nutritious meals.

CEP is built on direct certification and allows schools to serve free healthy school meals for all students (regardless of household income) without collecting individual applications. Under CEP, schools receive federal reimbursements based on the percentage of students directly certified for free meals. CEP is a vital tool in fighting childhood hunger and supporting kids' access to a healthy diet. With fewer kids directly certified for free school meals, fewer schools may be eligible for CEP, and those still eligible could receive less federal funding for their programs. In sum, reduced direct certification due to SNAP and Medicaid changes will make it harder for schools to provide healthy free meals for all students. Additionally, the nine states that have passed statewide healthy school meals for all (HSMFA) policies rely on maximizing federal reimbursements via CEP. As a result, this threat to CEP could also jeopardize HSFMA programs in the states that have enacted such policies.

Summer EBT

S-EBT combats child summer hunger, which peaks when kids cannot eat school meals, by providing families with $120 per child in grocery benefits. S-EBT benefits are fully paid for by the federal government; states just need to put up matching administrative funds. Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently vetoed funding for S-EBT in the state's FY27 budget. Texas would have had to pay part of the administrative costs to participate, but Governor Abbott stated there is too much uncertainty surrounding federal matching rates for this and similar programs to fund S-EBT in FY27. Texas may be the first state to start cutting programs, but others are sure to follow as the cost-shift takes effect.

Eligibility for WIC

Similarly to school meals, the SNAP and Medicaid provisions in the OBBBA will indirectly impact individuals' eligibility for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Through adjunctive eligibility, applicants can qualify for WIC by showing proof of Medicaid or SNAP participation. The National WIC Association estimates that of the approximately eight million WIC participants who are adjunctively eligible, three million will lose their eligibility should they lose access to Medicaid. With fewer applicants adjunctively eligible through Medicaid and SNAP participation, the certification process for WIC will become more burdensome for both families and program administrators, potentially delaying or denying critical food assistance for pregnant and postpartum parents, infants, and children.

The OBBBA fully defunds SNAP-Ed

SNAP Nutrition Education (SNAP-Ed) is a USDA program that helps people make the most of their SNAP dollars, providing education on how to shop for and cook healthy meals and lead physically active lifestyles. Beyond direct nutrition education, SNAP-Ed also emphasizes changes to policies, systems, and environments to make healthy, active lifestyles more attainable for people, such as by expanding elementary school gardens. Furthermore, many SNAP-Ed programs are implemented in schools and are an important vehicle for delivering nutrition education to children. Research from the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA shows that SNAP-Ed is effective in increasing fruit and vegetable intake, increasing physical activity among participants, increasing cardiovascular fitness in participating schools, and decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage intake. Despite this evidence, the OBBBA fully defunds SNAP-Ed, taking beneficial nutrition and health guidance away from families.

Looking ahead

The OBBBA is anything but beautiful, enacting the largest cuts to federal nutrition programs in history. As implementation of the OBBBA is just beginning, some congressional Republicans are already discussing a second reconciliation package with further cuts to Medicaid. Instead of enacting deeper cuts to programs on which millions of Americans rely, Congress should unwind the most harmful provisions and advance policies that make it easier for more Americans, especially our kids, to access a healthy diet.

Tags

• SNAP
• Threats to Public Health

Topics

• Government Accountability
• SNAP