In the year since Donald Trump returned to power, his administration and its allies in Congress have rolled out a series of harsh new rules for recipients of SNAP, the federal food assistance program formerly known as food stamps. From a massive budget cut to new work requirements, experts say, the changes are reshaping how the 42 million people who rely on the program can use the benefits to stave off hunger each month.
But now, anti-hunger advocates, and grocers who serve customers using Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, are pushing back on one change in particular: limits on what kinds of foods SNAP recipients can buy.
SNAP recipients in five states — Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia — sued in early March to roll back the changes. They argue the Trump administration bypassed or ignored laws mandating how changes to SNAP are made, transforming a uniform federal standard for eligible food into a hodgepodge, state-by-state system.
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The nonprofit National Center for Law and Economic Justice and the antitrust law firm Shinder Cantor Lerner filed the suit. In a statement, NCLEJ attorney Katharine Deabler-Meadows said that SNAP used the changes as a “backdoor in national policy that expresses the administration’s preferences around food.”
The changes, Deabler-Meadows said, put an undue burden on grocery retailers, who are now required to “identify, track, and enforce restrictions across tens of thousands of products, necessitating costly system reprogramming, item coding, employee retraining, and customer education.”
Meanwhile, the administration has shifted some of the federal government’s responsibilities to the states, leaving it up to them to determine what food qualifies.
Almost 26% of SNAP participants — approximately 10.2 million people — are Black. Participants receive an average of $187 a month, or just over $6 per day.
The federal budget approved last July and known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” cuts roughly $187 billion from SNAP over the next ten years. Around the same time, the Trump administration placed new work requirements for SNAP eligibility.
Then in May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, announced it would approve state-level food-choice waivers. These rules restrict purchases of soda, energy drinks, candy, and other foods for people who receive SNAP benefits, according to a list of changes the agency provided.
Such items are considered to have little nutritional value and so far, 22 states have rolled out the restrictions.
States having the widest range of restricted items include Iowa, followed by states like Tennessee, which banned “processed foods and beverages.” South Carolina, for example, prohibits SNAP recipients from several categories of sweetened products, including prepared desserts.
A State-by-State Patchwork
Several states implementing food waiver restrictions also have some of the largest Black populations in the country.
Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Carolina are phasing in rules throughout 2026. Texas alone is expected to affect more than 3.5 million recipients when its restrictions on candy and sweetened beverages take effect.
Others note the changes have caused confusion among recipients and retailers alike. Previously, most food items intended to be eaten at home were SNAP eligible. But now, grocers have to enforce the state-specific restrictions.
Concerns From Grocers and Advocates
Grocers report several challenges, such as confusion over which items qualify under varying state definitions and the cost of updating systems.
In a statement, the National Grocers Association said the approval of SNAP restriction waivers “has introduced significant new challenges for independent grocers working to serve their communities and uphold the core mission of SNAP.”
“As of January 1, retailers in five states are required to identify, track, and enforce restrictions across tens of thousands of products, necessitating costly system reprogramming, item coding, employee retraining, and customer education,” according to the statement. “These operational demands place additional strain on stores and could disrupt checkout experiences as retailers work in good faith to comply.”
There is also concern about transaction delays and customer frustration at checkout, especially during the early phases of implementation.
Recipients Push Back
Hunger prevention advocates have raised several concerns. They argue that the Trump administration violated laws authorizing SNAP and the methods required to make such policy changes.
The NCLEJ and Shinder Cantor Lerner lawsuit says the USDA has overstepped.
The agency “authorized states to narrow the statutory definition of ‘food’ haphazardly without statutory authority or evaluation methodology,” with no notice or input from businesses or SNAP recipients, the suit alleges.
The practical effect, the plaintiffs said, “is to destabilize food access for every SNAP participant in the affected states.”
“We commend these organizations for taking legal action to protect the dignity of the tens of millions of people who rely on SNAP to put food on the table,” the Food Research & Action Council said in a statement. “We also recognize the courage of the individual plaintiffs who stepped forward to challenge these policies.”
Organizations that represent the convenience store industry also repeated concerns it had voiced before the changes went into effect. Margaret Mannion, director of government relations for the National Association of Convenience Stores, said the lawsuit raises the issue “that NACS has flagged for the Department of Agriculture many times.”
“We need answers for how SNAP restrictions can work in the real world,” she said. “If there are no answers, then the courts or the Department should put an end to these waivers.”