The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves 42 million Americans and is the most effective defense against hunger in the country. Yet the program is facing the biggest cuts in its history with the passage of the 2025 reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The new law undermines SNAP’s ability to reduce food insecurity and help families put food on the table in several ways. It requires, for the first time, that states fund part of benefit costs; imposes work requirements for and associated time limits on receiving benefits for older adults and families with older children; and eliminates eligibility for lawfully residing humanitarian immigrants.
Another concerning provision requires that updates to the program market basket, known as the Thrifty Food Plan, be cost neutral. SNAP benefits are already too low to cover food costs, and this requirement will make it even harder to increase benefits to a level that is enough to help families afford food.
With food prices persistently elevated (PDF) and SNAP benefits failing to cover the cost of even a modestly priced meal in recent years, the One Big Beautiful Bill changes are expected to increase food insecurity and poverty for millions of Americans. In this post, we share the most recent available data on food costs and SNAP benefits and explain the effects of the bill’s provisions to help federal policymakers understand what’s at stake.
SNAP benefits continued to be too low to cover the cost of food in 2024
To understand how proposed cuts to SNAP in the One Big Beautiful Bill will affect the program, it’s important to first understand the current state of SNAP benefits.
Using county-level food price data from NielsenIQ, we compared the cost of a modestly priced meal with the maximum SNAP benefit before and after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) adjusted benefits for inflation in 2024. At the end of 2024 (after the inflation adjustment), the maximum SNAP benefit did not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in 99 percent of counties. That means there’s virtually nowhere in the US where a family who qualifies for even the largest benefit (nearly 40 percent of all SNAP recipients) can reliably afford food.
The data also show the gap between SNAP benefits and meal costs per person was significant throughout the US at the end of 2024:
- Nationwide, a modestly priced meal cost 20 percent more than the maximum SNAP benefit.
- Overall, about half (53 percent) of counties had a meal price more than 50 cents per meal higher than the maximum benefit.
- Overall, the maximum benefit fell short of meeting monthly meal costs by $53.01.
- The gap between SNAP benefits and meal costs hit urban areas with high food costs harder than in rural areas, although counties of all types had a shortfall.
These trends follow significant fluctuation in SNAP benefits in recent years. After the reevaluation of SNAP benefits under the Thrifty Food Plan in 2021, SNAP benefit adequacy significantly improved. But persistently high food prices since 2022 have meant the benefit hasn’t been enough to cover meal costs for the past three years, even with annual inflation adjustments.
The One Big Beautiful Bill’s cost neutrality requirement will further undermine SNAP benefits
The biggest threat to SNAP benefit adequacy in the One Big Beautiful Bill is the requirement for all updates to the Thrifty Food Plan to be cost neutral.
The USDA uses the Thrifty Food Plan to determine SNAP benefit amounts, and requiring plan updates to be cost neutral means the USDA cannot adjust the calculation for SNAP benefits outside of adjustments made for inflation. This provision is dangerously misguided, as it ignores the reality that our food environment, food preparation and consumption patterns, and dietary guidelines are constantly evolving.
As evidence of this, the most recent update to the Thrifty Food Plan in 2021 was the first adjustment since 1975. It revealed that the assumptions used in the Thrifty Food Plan were out of step (PDF) with the realities of everyday life, and the reevaluation resulted in a 21 percent increase to SNAP benefits. The increase was a significant milestone for improving benefit adequacy, reducing the share of counties with a gap from 96 percent to 21 percent and keeping 2.9 million people out of poverty.
A provision in the 2018 Farm Bill requires the USDA to review the adequacy of the Thrifty Food Plan every five years, and the next review is slated for 2027. However, the One Big Beautiful Bill provision prohibits the USDA from making substantive changes, even if data suggest there’s a need. Requiring the federal government to complete this detailed analysis but prohibiting them from acting on their findings is ineffective policymaking and a poor use of government resources.
Other cuts to SNAP will worsen food insecurity and health outcomes across the US
An Urban Institute analysis of all the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill—including increased state cost-sharing requirements, expanded work requirements, and restrictions on noncitizens’ eligibility—finds that 22.3 million US families would lose some or all of their SNAP benefits. Among these families, 5.3 million would lose at least $25 in SNAP benefits per month, and most of them would be working families and families with children.
The ability to afford a nutritious diet is uncertain for many Americans with low incomes who receive SNAP benefits. Food prices are 23.6 percent higher in 2024 than in 2020, and our data show that affording a healthy diet continues to remain out of reach. Further, we know that SNAP participants who live in areas with higher food costs, such as urban areas and many rural areas near tourist destinations, can’t afford as much food with their benefits and may need to rely on cheaper, lower-quality foods. Constraining updates and reducing access to SNAP benefits limits families’ ability to maintain a healthy diet, which is a stated goal of the current administration.
SNAP has been found to reduce food insecurity and improve health outcomes. And it can even stabilize the economy, with research finding that every additional dollar of SNAP spent during an economic downturn can generate up to $1.50 in economic activity. Undermining SNAP will hinder families’ ability to afford food, increase poverty, and increase food insecurity in every corner of the US.
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