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Big Changes Coming to SNAP Program And Democrats Are Predictably Furious

By AGRICULTURE

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries may have cheered when President Trump signed the bill to end the Schumer Shutdown — and who can blame them? But the SNAP program they’re walking back into isn’t the same one that existed on September 30.

SNAP is the primary program in the United States that provides nutrition assistance to individuals and families living at or below the poverty line. It currently serves approximately 42 million people across 22.4 million households. To put that into perspective, about one in eight Americans and one in six households rely on SNAP. Among the recipients, around 39 percent are children, about 10 percent are disabled individuals aged 18 to 59, and roughly 20 percent are elderly.

In Fiscal Year 2024, the federal government allocated $100.3 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Out of this total, approximately $7 billion was provided to states to manage the program. For that fiscal year, SNAP benefits averaged about $6 per day for each person in a household. The TikTok videos you may have seen during the SNAP shutdown, which featured recipients with thousands of dollars available on their EBT cards, are either staged for attention or indicative of potential fraudulent activity.

When President Trump inked the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, he didn’t just reopen the government — he delivered the most sweeping overhaul of SNAP in the program’s history. The legislation slashes a staggering $186 billion from SNAP spending and installs long-overdue work requirements and other eligibility restrictions.

In other words, the days of handing out benefits with no accountability are over. Here are some of the changes:

Age limits increased: Able-bodied adults ages 18 to 64 must now work at least 80 hours per month, or participate in education, training, or volunteer programs, to remain eligible for SNAP benefits beyond three months within a three-year period. Previously, the upper age limit for this requirement was 54.

Exemptions removed: Individuals classified as Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) were previously limited to three months of SNAP benefits within three years unless they qualified for exemptions, including veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults aging out of foster care. Those exemptions have been eliminated.

Caregiver exemption narrowed: The exemption from time limits for caregivers has been tightened. Instead of covering caregivers of children under 18, it now applies only to those caring for children under 14.

Waiver criteria narrowed: Areas with unemployment rates above 10% may still qualify for waivers from work requirements—except in Alaska and Hawaii. However, states can no longer obtain waivers by certifying that certain regions lack sufficient job opportunities. That provision has been removed, and states must now use Bureau of Labor Statistics data when applying for waivers.

Federal Cost Share Reduced: Previously, the federal government covered 75 percent of state administrative costs for SNAP. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), the federal share has been reduced to 50 percent.

End of Benefits for Most Non-Citizens: The changes to SNAP will eliminate eligibility for an estimated 250,000 refugees and other individuals holding humanitarian visas.

The administrative reforms are expected to shrink the rolls by as many as 3 million recipients — with roughly 2.4 million removed due to the restored work requirements alone. But here’s the real story: the biggest savings will come from finally cracking down on the rampant fraud that’s plagued SNAP for years.

Right now, an obscene amount of taxpayer money is being siphoned off through scams and trafficking schemes. USDA investigators recently busted a ring of SNAP fraudsters, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg:

Starting in 2019, KEHOE orchestrated a network that supplied approximately 160 unauthorized EBT terminals to stores across the New York area to illegally process more than $30 million in EBT transactions. Working with his codefendants NAWAFLEH, OMAR ALRAWASHDEH, OBAID, and EMAD ALRAWASHDEH, KEHOE submitted approximately 200 fraudulent USDA applications, misappropriating USDA license numbers and, in some cases, doctoring application documents, to obtain EBT terminals for unauthorized stores—including smoke shops and other ineligible businesses.

USDA Secretary Rollins is well aware of the massive fraud that’s taking place, by the way:

Data from just 29 states uncovered nearly 200,000 people with dead people’s social security numbers… Meanwhile, 21 states are suing to keep their data hidden.

This number comes from a straightforward comparison of Social Security records against SNAP rolls — and the results were jaw-dropping. If roughly 200,000 dead people were still collecting SNAP benefits in the small group of states that cooperated with investigators, then the national number of fraudulent accounts almost certainly exceeds half a million. That’s not a rounding error — that’s a full-blown scandal.

If the reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are implemented as written, SNAP enrollment should finally drop back to pre-COVID levels of about 37 million. That would represent not only massive taxpayer savings, but also a long-overdue purge of people who have no business receiving government benefits in the first place.

SNAP absolutely helps millions of American families, and it should. But for the program to retain broad public support, it cannot continue bleeding money through fraud and abuse. Americans are generous — but they’re not fools. The OBBA’s tightened rules and Secretary Rollins’ aggressive push for accountability are exactly what’s needed: a system that helps the truly needy, spends less taxpayer cash, and puts the scammers where they belong — behind bars.

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