Overview:
Since last year, 5.5 million people have lost the SNAP food assistance that provides little more than $6 per day to stave off hunger.
Exactly one week after the midterm elections gave the GOP what’s being called a generational loss, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing a change to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that it says would cause 6.3 million people to lose food assistance.
The proposed rule would eliminate a provision called “broad-based categorical eligibility” that since 2008 has allowed individuals who qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or similar state benefits, to automatically qualify for food aid under SNAP.
According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture impact analysis,17% of all SNAP households in the U.S. would lose their food benefits entirely if the proposal is adopted. The cuts would reduce federal benefit spending by roughly $44.6 billion over five years, according to the analysis.
“The cruelty of the Trump Administration has no limits. The newly released proposed rule once again targets the most vulnerable among us by narrowing eligibility and blocking families from vital food assistance,” Democratic Congress member Jahana Hayes of Connecticut said in a statement.
“This change does not aim to mitigate fraud or abuse – it is to inflict harm on families struggling to get by,” said Hayes, who is the ranking member of the House Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee.
Roughly 5.5 million people already have lost federal food assistance benefits since President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act was approved in July 2025.
According to a 2024 USDA report, three-quarters of the nation’s SNAP households had incomes at or below federal poverty guidelines; the average net monthly income was $551. In 2024, most households included a child, an elderly adult or a person with disabilities, according to the report. Almost 25% of SNAP participants are Black.
Economists predict that the budget bill’s major cuts, along with new work requirements, will likely lead to millions more losing the roughly $6 per day in benefits to keep food on the table each month.
First Attempted Seven Years Ago
The BBCE policy that allowed for families on other assistance programs to automatically qualify for SNAP benefits has been in the Trump administration’s crosshairs for a while. The first Trump administration issued a similar proposal in 2019. The Biden administration withdrew that proposal in 2021. But earlier this year, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins discussed the policy again during an appearance on FOX News in April, according to The Washington Sun. Rollins criticized the BBCE policy as saying no identity verification is required to sign up. But the BBCE only benefits individuals who have already been through the TANF application process.
“Broad-based categorical eligibility has bloated the welfare rolls for decades,” a USDA spokesperson told The Washington Sun and others this week in a statement. “It has allowed States to take short cuts, error rates to balloon, and those with income and assets far above federal limits access to a benefit meant for the neediest among us. Correcting this loophole is long overdue.”
Households with infants and children who lose SNAP also will face a more complicated process to access free school meals and benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — also called WIC. Just over 21% of WIC participants are Black but only around half of eligible individuals participate in the program.
The USDA says under the proposed rule, “about 1.78 million children would no longer be categorically eligible for free school meals, although almost all such children … would still retain eligibility for free or reduced price school meals based on household income and could certify through a different process.”
Hunger prevention advocates are urging the administration to reverse course since the current process helps the states minimize red tape and reduce administrative costs while enabling millions of children, disabled adults and the working poor to be fed.
“Let’s be clear about what this rule does not do. It does not reduce hunger. It does not improve program integrity. It does not make a single family more food secure. It simply moves the cost of hunger off the federal ledger and onto food banks, pantries, school cafeterias and families,” Jenique Jones, executive director of WhyHunger, said in a statement. “This is not reform. This is a benefit cut dressed up as paperwork,” she said.
The public can submit a comment on the USDA’s proposal at the regulations.gov website. Comments filed on or before Dec. 10 will be considered.
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