The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law on July 4, made historic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, these cuts account for close to 20% of the program and a loss of $186 billion over nine years.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research organization that advocates for policies to reduce poverty and inequality, released multiple documents detailing changes made to the program since the bills passing.
Ed Bolen, the center's director of SNAP State Strategies, said they have found that with less federal funding going towards SNAP, Ohio will have to pick up the slack.
"There's not administrative costs or other things that you can tweak with to create those kinds of savings," he said. "So the end result is there's going to be really significant impacts on households and individuals because they're either gonna get less benefits or they're gonna lose SNAP entirely."
Concerns about people losing access to SNAP under new rules
In addition to cutting funding, the bill is expanding work requirements by raising its age limit from 55 to 64 and requiring parents whose youngest child is at least 14 to work 20 hours a week.
While work requirements have been enforced with SNAP in Ohio since the 1996 welfare bill, these expanded requisites will put more people at risk.
The average SNAP benefit equates to around $6.20 a day, which Bolen said negates the intention of expanding the existing requirements.
"So the theory that people are turning down work or not looking for work, because that $6.20 a day is like making life easy for them, it doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense," he said.
Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth could also be stripped of their current exemptions.
According to Sunny Fox, a Dayton resident who has utilized SNAP since 2020, these requirements could impact numerous local families who rely on the program to feed their households.
“All of a sudden they have to start seeking work in this job market, in this environment, and it's absolutely nightmarish,” Fox said.
The Whitehouse Office of Communications said in an email to WYSO that the “OBBB promotes work, responsibility, and restores SNAP to serve the truly needy."
But for SNAP users like Fox, these cuts do not feel like a service.
“I gotta pay for the bills to keep lights on," Fox said. "And taking away the money that I have to eat is just cruel, really.”
While Fox will not be directly impacted by the expanded work requirements, numerous other recipients in the state could face difficulties maintaining their access to SNAP due to administrative hurdles.
"It's really rough because a lot of them are parents of kids and just trying to keep their head above water or afford groceries for them to feed their kids," Fox said.
Studies show most SNAP recipients who are able to work, do work, often in unstable jobs. And Bolen points to research that shows work requirements don’t necessarily incentivize SNAP recipients to join the labor market.
"It's unfortunate that the idea that the work requirements should be expanded to more folks actually took hold because it's a failed policy that ultimately is just a way to cut people off."
“So it's unfortunate that the idea that the work requirements should be expanded to more folks actually took hold because it's a failed policy that ultimately is just a way to cut people off,” he said.
Bolen said one of the main reasons people turn to SNAP is a loss of employment and oftentimes they will leave the program once they find new employment.
"It truly is a bridge — for many people between jobs," he said. "And it's unfortunate if it only goes halfway there. And then three months later you're left without, even if you're still looking for work."
Cost shifts will put additional funding burden on states
The revised reconciliation proposal also introduced a cost-shift proposal, which means that most states would be required to pay a portion of food benefit costs based on their error rate. Error rates measure the over- and under-payments a SNAP program makes in a year.
"Going forward, states will be required to pay anywhere between 5% to 15% of total benefits based on what SNAP calls an error rate," Bolen said. "So the higher the error rate, the more errors in the payments, the more a state will have to pay."
That means that if a state has an error rate below 6%, they will not have to pay anything. But as soon as they hit 6%, they have to pay a percentage of the benefits, depending on their error rate.
"If this was in effect now, Ohio's most recent error rate was just over 9% and that means the state would be responsible for 10% of the benefits, which last year was $316 million," Bolen said. "So the state will have to come up, in its state budget process, with a brand new item that has $316 million to pay for what used to be federal benefits as part of this cost shift. So that can be tough for states to come up with."
He said that means Ohio could be at risk of cutting funding to the program or removing it from the state entirely.
"If it's not able to find the funds it would need to pay its share, then the law does not allow the federal government to bail out a state."
"I certainly hope that doesn't happen and I hope Ohio can bring down its error rate and find the money it needs to find," Bolen said. "But if it's not able to find the funds it would need to pay its share, then the law does not allow the federal government to bail out a state."
After years working in food pantries and distributing goods to those in need, Bolen said he knows how hard it can be for Americans to fill the gap without programs like SNAP.
"It's kind of going back on the promise to Americans [that] no matter where they live, there's a food assistance program that can put food in your wallet essentially. To go out into the world like everybody else and buy food and bring it home, prepare it for your families," he said. "And by ending that long-standing agreement, you do put more pressure on your communities to somehow fill the gap."
And as a longtime SNAP recipient, Fox agrees with Bolen.
“Just because somebody is poor and on social support programs like that does not mean they don't deserve to have nice things," Fox said.
