The future of SNAP benefits is uncertain across America as Republican lawmakers work to make budget cuts and limit what can be purchased using the anti-hunger benefits.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as “food stamps,” is available nationwide to support low- and no-income households buy groceries. In 2023, the program assisted an average of 42.1 million people per month, or around 12.6 percent of the population. For fiscal year 2025, SNAP recipients are expected to receive an average of $187 per month per person, which is roughly $6.16 per day.
But a budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives last week threatens the federal funding of the program and Republicans across the country are seeking to make amendments to what can be bought using food benefits, leaving the future of the national anti-poverty program in murky waters.
“Everyone currently participating in SNAP is at risk of losing some or all of their benefits,” Ivy Enoch, SNAP policy and training lead at Hunger Free Vermont, told Newsweek. “There is no way to make such deep cuts to SNAP without harming families. This would make it extremely difficult if not impossible for millions of people to afford groceries.”
Photo Illustration by Newsweek
Budget Cuts
In February, the House narrowly passed a budget that directs the House Committee on Agriculture to cut programs spending in its jurisdiction by at least $230 billion through to 2034. The budget does not specifically mention SNAP, but a significant chunk of the cuts are expected to come from the program.
Exactly how the money will be saved is not set in stone. In a GOP budget memorandum published earlier this year, plans included expanding work requirements (saving $5 billion), limiting changes in SNAP’s cost to the rate of inflation ($36 billion) and capping the amount of benefits available for households with more than six people ($2 billion).
But “lawmakers cannot cut $230 billion—or anything close to that amount—from SNAP without slashing benefits, restricting eligibility, or some combination of both,” the left-leaving Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has reported.
Enoch explained that if the budget proposals become law further down the line, “there are really only three options in front of the House Agriculture committee: drastically cut SNAP benefits, severely limit eligibility and take SNAP away from people, or shift costs to states which will ultimately result in the same thing: taking grocery money away from every single SNAP participant.”
Democrats have not been quiet about the impacts of the federal budget cutbacks—not just to SNAP but also to other safety net programs like Medicaid. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the budget “reckless” and said cuts are “a matter of life and death.”
Some GOP representatives in areas with high SNAP participation rates have also signaled alarm, although all Republicans bar one voted to advance the budget. “While we fully support efforts to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, we must ensure that assistance programs—such as SNAP—remain protected,” a group of Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter to speaker Mike Johnson before the House passed the bill.
Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has insisted that he does not want to make cuts to SNAP.
“We can achieve what we need to do by program integrity to make the program stronger and better and better serve people, and also making sure the states take some accountability with the program. So there are no cuts to benefits,” he said, according to a report by Politico.
Limiting Purchases
At the state level, numerous Republican lawmakers are taking action to stop “junk” foods being eligible for purchase using food stamps—policies that have been criticized for restricting freedom and deepening poverty. Junk food generally refers to foods that have lots of calories, particularly those high in macronutrients such as sugar and fat, but little nutritional value.
“If someone wants to buy junk food on their own dime, that’s up to them,” Republican Representative Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma said in January while introducing the Healthy SNAP Act, which would exclude soft drinks, candy, ice cream and prepared desserts from being purchased using SNAP benefits. “But what we’re saying is, don’t ask the taxpayer to pay for it and then also expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the resulting health consequences.”
He is not alone in pushing for such changes. Kentucky Representative Matt Lockett and Idaho Representative Jordan Redman, both Republicans, have both introduced similar bills. Redman’s bill narrowly passed the state House this week.
State-level efforts center on a consistent concern: taxpayers bearing the financial burden of health issues stemming from diet-related conditions such as obesity. In a December letter addressed to incoming Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders urged the Trump administration to bar SNAP benefits from being used to buy “junk” food purchases.
She pointed to the role of unhealthy food and beverage purchases in “fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and a wide range of chronic health conditions across America.”
Kennedy is on board with Huckabee Sanders’ way of thinking. “The one place that I would say that we need to really change policy is the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches,” Kennedy told Fox News. “There, the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison.”
‘Misguided Restrictions’
Others disagree. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in January that limiting SNAP purchases would “add misguided restrictions on the types of foods participants can buy, creating stigma for low-income families and costly red tape for program administrators, retailers, and participants.”
Critics of the limitation plans argue that removing large numbers of products could significantly impact affordability for America’s neediest, especially given the rising cost of food in recent years. According to the USDA, overall U.S. food prices increased by 23.6 percent between 2020 and 2024. A study conducted by PlushCare in August 2024 revealed that unhealthy foods are consistently cheaper than healthy options across all 50 U.S. states, with price differences ranging from approximately 2.9 to 3.7 percent.
“Controlling how the poor eat is a paternalistic response to a problem that is not based in SNAP recipients’ inability to make good decisions about healthy foods, it is a problem of the price differential in choosing healthy or junk foods,” Valerie Imbruce, director of the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College, told Newsweek. “Soda and candy are much cheaper and more calorie dense than 100 percent fruit juices or prebiotic non-artificially sweetened carbonated beverages, thanks to price supports and subsidies by the federal government to support a U.S. sugar industry.”
Brittany Christenson, CEO of AidKit, a public benefit corporation that helps government agencies and nonprofits administer aid programs, said that if such restrictions are going to become reality, the monetary amount of food stamps should be increased.
She told Newsweek that such proposals “often overlook the reality that many low-income, working families live in food deserts, where access to fresh, affordable produce and protein is limited.”
“Families on tight budgets must stretch their food dollars, and lower-cost, shelf-stable foods often become a necessity,” Christenson said. “If policymakers seek to restrict SNAP purchases to only healthier options, then SNAP benefits should be increased to ensure families can afford nutritious foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy.”
Companies that produce the very foods targeted by Republican policies have pushed back as it could naturally impact profits, but they have also raised concerns about the fairness of restricting food choices for lower-income Americans.
The American Beverage Association, which represents brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper, said in a December statement that Huckabee Sanders’ proposal would “effectively create a two-tiered system in which the right to personal autonomy around diet is conditioned on income and means. This goes against America’s commitment to individual liberty and freedom.”