The House budget plan includes huge cuts to federal food assistance, the largest reduction ever proposed in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The proposed cut requires states to pay a significant portion of the cost of SNAP benefits and expands ineffective reporting requirements, which would put food assistance at risk for older adults and children. If passed, these changes would reduce or eliminate food assistance for many of the 575,800 Kentuckians who get help with groceries through SNAP at a time when food insecurity in Kentucky is on the rise and cost of groceries is increasing.
Cuts SNAP by shifting costs to states
SNAP benefits have been entirely federally funded for the past 50 years, but the House plan would force states to take on a significant share of the cost for the first time. All states would be required to pay for a minimum of 5% of SNAP benefits. In Kentucky, that means paying at least $63 million a year to maintain benefits for all SNAP participants. For context, that is equivalent to 30,380 people participating in SNAP.
However, the state’s cost share would increase depending on what is known as the “error rate” (how accurate each state is at eligibility and benefit determinations for applicants). In 2023, Kentucky had an error rate of 7.27% which would have resulted in a 15% cost share, or more than $190 million per-year under this legislation. This is in addition to a proposed increase in the state’s share of the administrative cost of running the SNAP program from 50% to 75%.
This cost shift would put substantial pressure on the already underfunded Kentucky state budget. Kentucky’s legislature has cut the income tax several times since 2018, resulting in over $2 billion less in revenue per year starting in 2027 when the already-enacted tax cuts are fully in effect. Finding $190 million a year to cover SNAP benefits is equivalent to the cost of paying for 2,354 Kentucky public school teachers. This budget hole would be particularly severe during an economic downturn when SNAP enrollment quickly swells and state revenues fall at the same time.
Expands paperwork requirements, putting 135,000 older adults and children at risk
Currently, SNAP enrollees without dependents or documented disabilities between 18 to 54 years old are required to report their work hours each month, despite evidence that most people with SNAP already work and work reporting requirements are harmful and ineffective. The House plan expands this paperwork requirement to people ages 55 to 64 and to families with children over 7 years old, unless their parents or caregivers are married and one of them follows work rules. This means an additional 135,000 Kentuckians (about 23% of all current SNAP participants), including children and older adults, would be at risk of losing some or all of their household’s help with groceries. Charitable food banks and pantries could not fill this new gap; for every one meal food pantries provide, SNAP provides nine, and food pantries have seen their own federal funding cuts in recent months.
Ends the state option to waive work reporting requirements in areas with too-few jobs
The House plan severely restricts the options states have to waive the above-mentioned work reporting requirement in areas with elevated unemployment rates. Given that poor economic conditions can make employment extremely difficult, or even impossible, current federal law allows for states to temporarily waive work reporting requirements with approval from the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Every state in the country has used this option at some point in the past and there are currently over 60,000 Kentuckians protected by such a waiver in 117 counties.
The House plan restricts this waiver to areas in states with an unemployment rate over 10%. This would hamper SNAP’s ability to help Kentucky bounce back from a recession or provide relief in regions with local economic hardship. Even though no Kentucky county has an unemployment rate over 10%, many have long-term, elevated unemployment rates, and Kentucky’s unemployment rate (5.2%) is already higher than the national average (4.2%). Effectively eliminating this option will remove needed federal dollars from local economies that are badly in need of supports, particularly in eastern Kentucky.
Caps SNAP benefits for all current and future participants by freezing the Thrifty Food Plan
In 2021, USDA updated the Thrifty Food Plan, the plan establishing the formula for how SNAP benefits are calculated, for the first time in 50 years to reflect food costs, scientific nutrition standards and modern food consumption and preparation. As a result, SNAP benefits increased to an average of $1.40 per -person, per-day (to about $6 a-day) – which made a large difference for some families even while remaining a very modest cost.
The current House plan, however, prohibits USDA from making future increases to the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan, essentially freezing SNAP benefits, with an annual cost of living adjustment as the only update available. This cut means the calculation of benefits would no longer take into account any adjustments for changes to nutrition standards, food purchasing patterns or systemic changes in food costs.
In Kentucky, SNAP benefits are already too low. The cost of a modestly priced meal is $3.19 in Kentucky, 11% higher than what the maximum SNAP benefit provides. Freezing the Thrifty Food Plan will take food from every current and future participant and over time will make food – especially fresh, nutritious food – less affordable for SNAP participants.
Further reduces SNAP benefits and supports for thousands of Kentuckians by ending state options
Additional technical policy changes in the House plan would cut SNAP benefits and supports. For example, in addition to earnings, SNAP takes into account costs for basic expenses like shelter and utilities in the calculation of the amount of SNAP benefits a household should receive. The proposal narrows how states calculate utilities costs for households and excludes internet costs from these basic expenses, resulting in reduced benefits for thousands of Kentuckians. It also eliminates the nutrition education and obesity prevention program that allows the University of Kentucky and Kentucky State University to provide nutrition education, cooking classes and resource connections to people with SNAP.
The House plan would end eligibility for SNAP for certain kinds of immigrants who are granted legal status, such as asylees, people with Temporary Protected Status (like people fleeing war in Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine) and refugees, who have long qualified for SNAP under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. An estimated 7,000 legally present immigrants residing in Kentucky would lose their food assistance.
Any one of these significant cuts to food assistance would worsen our already rising food insecurity. Together, they would be the largest cut to SNAP in history. These historic cuts will worsen health, increase health care costs and weaken local economies in Kentucky, reaching far beyond the dinner table to farmers, grocers, schools, food banks and church pantries.
