Trump’s SNAP rules are about to imperil food access for millions

Veterans, people aging out of foster care, and parents of teenagers are just a few of the groups who will face dire consequences from work requirements for people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that are taking effect for several states across the country on Sunday, February 1. 

Expected to impact millions of Americans and cause around two million recipients to stop receiving benefits altogether, these changes stem from President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed in July. The GOP bill will reduce SNAP funding by approximately $186 billion over 10 years—a cut of around 20 percent. 

SNAP currently helps provide food to more than 42 million Americans each month—more than two–thirds of whom are elderly, disabled, or children. To qualify for SNAP, households must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line —which, as of 2026, stands at $15,960 for a single person, $27,320 for a three-person household, and $38,680 for a five-person household.

Typically, adults who are eligible for SNAP can receive benefits for three months within a 36-month period before needing to fulfill additional work requirements, such as getting employment or attending a work training program. Many groups of people are granted exceptions to the work requirements depending on their abilities and life circumstances. The updated requirements, however, target some of these groups. 

Starting Sunday, February 1, in several states around the country able-bodied individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 without dependents must be working or attending a work program for 80 hours or more per month to receive benefits. Before the GOP bill’s passage, the age limit for work requirements was 55. And, while parents and household members with dependents under the age of 18 were previously exempt from the requirements, moving forward those exceptions will only apply to families with dependents under the age of 14. 

Certain other groups facing unique challenges were also able to receive benefits without fulfilling certain requirements, but will now be forced to comply with the new rules. These groups include veterans, people ages 24 and under who recently aged out of foster care, and people who are unhoused. 

According to a Congressional Budget Office report from August 2025, these new provisions could reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month from 2025 to 2034. 

The power of individual states to provide benefits during difficult hiring periods is also being affected. State leaders can only temporarily extend benefits beyond three months if the unemployment rate in an area is at least 10 percent, per the updated rules. The national unemployment rate is, according to a January report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 4.4 percent.

According to the Trump administration, these new rules are aimed at eliminating what they say is fraud and “reflect the importance of work and responsibility,” as detailed on the United States Department of Agriculture website. The USDA is the agency that funds SNAP. Yet, according to an April 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service, “SNAP fraud is rare.” Sometimes, an occasional error may occur through bureaucratic mistakes such as duplicate enrollments—though this does not constitute fraud, the report explained. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has lauded the new rules, saying in an interview with Fox Business on Friday that “the American dream is not being on [a] food stamp program.” She added, “That should be a hand up, not a handout.” 

People who receive SNAP benefits repeatedly have faced uncertainty recently, including during the longest government shutdown in American history last year, when millions of Americans didn’t receive their food benefits. Unlike during other government shutdowns, the Trump administration opted not to use contingency funds to keep SNAP operating while Congress worked on a deal. 

The administration last year also threatened to withhold federal funding for food stamps for more than 20 Democratic-led states that refused to hand over sensitive personal data—such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, and home addresses—about their recipients, reportedly in an effort to root out fraud. Democratic leaders refused, in part, because they worried this data would be used for immigration enforcement. 

Some people who are legally in the country but are not citizens have had access to SNAP benefits. These rules have also changed in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The GOP move will affect scores of people legally present in the US, including those who came to the country under asylum and refugee laws or had urgent humanitarian needs, such as being survivors of domestic violence or human trafficking. The new work guidelines risk adding more confusion to the mix.

“These work requirements aren’t really about promoting work. They’re about dehumanizing people and attacking the ‘other,’” Joel Berg, CEO of the nonprofit Hunger Free America, told ABC News. “Most SNAP recipients are pro-work, and most SNAP recipients are already working, or children, or people with disabilities, or older Americans. So all this is sort of a diversionary debate.”

And now, he explained, “more Americans will go hungry.”