How Federal Cuts to SNAP Are Already Roiling State Governments
Just as the beginning of a new year is a time for families to figure out their finances, the same is true for state legislatures. In the coming months, the majority of states will be penning their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. As they tally costs, legislators will need to account for looming changes to a key federal nutrition program that push more of the financial burden onto their books.
In July, Congress approved a law making a series of dramatic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps roughly 42 million Americans buy groceries. Along with adding new work requirements, the measure will also increase the amount that states spend on both administrative costs and SNAP benefits themselves. This could result in states shifting money from other public programs to fund SNAP—or choosing to limit either SNAP benefit amounts or eligibility overall to keep costs down.
“It’s very likely some states are thinking about whether or not they can keep this, if they can participate in SNAP, so that has huge implications for people experiencing poverty,” said Lelaine Bigelow, director of the Georgetown Law School Center on Poverty and Inequality. “Other programs are probably going to feel pinches, and it’s probably not going to be easy shifts.”
Beginning in October, states will be responsible for 75 percent of administrative costs of SNAP, a dramatic increase from the current 50 percent; the federal government will be responsible for the remaining 25 percent. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this provision would mean a reduction in federal funding for administrative costs by nearly $25 billion over the next decade.
As early as the fall of 2027, states will also be responsible for a portion of the cost of SNAP benefits, depending on their error rates—that is, the share of overpayments and underpayments of SNAP benefits. If an eligible household either receives too much or not enough in benefits for a given month, those payments are in error.
According to recent research by the Georgetown Law School Center on Poverty and Inequality, these new changes will result in states spending an average of two to three times more on SNAP in their budgets, with a median increase of 202 percent. In 15 states, the share of the state budget will increase by more than 300 percent.
If their error rate is above 6 percent in fiscal year 2025 or 2026, states may begin paying a portion of SNAP costs beginning in fiscal year 2028. If that state’s error rate is above 10 percent, they will be on the hook for 15 percent of benefit costs.
In recent years, state governments have faced struggles ranging from the extraordinary—such as managing benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic—to the quotidian, like shoring up outdated enrollment systems or understaffing issues. Surmounting these challenges may have helped to lower their error rates over that same period of time; for example, the state with the highest error rate in the nation, Alaska, dramatically cut that number between fiscal years 2023 and 2024. But cutting those rates below 10 percent may prove to be a monumental task, particularly given that a greater share of administrative costs will now be on states.
“For states that have incredibly higher error rates, they’re not going to lower those error rates in one year,” said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director for the Food Research and Action Center. “States have been coming down [by] 1 percent or 2 percent, but none of them are going to be able to come down 15 percent, 10 percent overnight.”
The error rate for 2025 will be finalized this June—meaning that legislators need to start thinking about how their states will be affected now. Some states with higher error rates may be able to delay implementation of the cost-sharing provision until fiscal year 2029 or 2030, but even so, those calculations will be based on error rates from 2025, 2026, and 2027.
In Florida, where close to three million residents received SNAP benefits last year, the state will be paying an additional $51 million in fiscal year 2027 to cover administrative costs. If its error rate remains above 10 percent, Florida will have the largest increase in the share of its budget dedicated to SNAP costs of any state, with a spike of 768 percent, according to the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Holly Bullard, the chief strategy and development officer at the Florida Policy Institute, is more worried about how the state will cover a portion of the cost of benefits. Florida’s SNAP error rate was greater than 15 percent in 2024, and an official with the Florida Department of Children and Families estimated last week that its error rate for fiscal year 2025 would be around 13 percent, with the goal of lowering it even further this year.
Although Florida is expected to have a surplus in fiscal year 2027, state budget estimators believe there will be a deficit in the two subsequent fiscal years, which could make sourcing SNAP funds an even more dire issue. Bullard raised a hypothetical scenario where Florida’s error rate remained high enough in the coming years that the state would be responsible for 15 percent of benefits when the cost-sharing provision goes into effect. Even if state lawmakers scrounged up half of the roughly $1 billion needed to cover the increase in costs, it would not be sufficient to provide full coverage, Bullard said.
“Either you reduce the amount of people on SNAP, or you cut everybody’s SNAP in half, or you do some sort of both where everyone’s amount is reduced, and you push off a certain amount of people,” she said. She worries that state lawmakers do not realize the severity of the situation. Although recently introduced legislation would ask the Department of Children and Families to develop strategies for reducing error rates, Governor Ron DeSantis will be out of office next year, meaning that his administration’s potential plans might not be able to come to fruition.
“I don’t think [state lawmakers] are treating this as the four-alarm fire that it is,” said Bullard. “It is an overwhelming risk that everyone needs to take very seriously and not just take someone’s word for it, especially an administration who’s not going to be there when this actually comes home to roost.”
Even if they have a relatively low error rate, states would still bear a portion of the burden. With an error rate between 6 and 8 percent, they will be responsible for 5 percent of benefit costs; with an error rate between 8 and 10 percent, those costs would increase to 10 percent of benefits. In fiscal year 2024, fewer than 10 states had an error rate of less than 6 percent. Even the states that are eligible for delayed implementation may struggle to get their error rates below 6 percent in a timely manner.
Experts say that error rates are not necessarily an indication of misuse of benefits but rather a result of outdated systems and administrative issues. “Higher error rates usually signal lack of technology, training, and staffing. It’s not about integrity. It’s not about fraud,” said Melissa Wolf, the vice chair of the American Association of SNAP Directors, in a January congressional briefing.
The looming threat of cost-sharing has received bipartisan pushback. In a January letter to congressional leaders, a coalition of organizations representing state, county, and city leaders, including the National Governors Association, asked for legislation to delay the administrative and benefits cost-sharing until fiscal year 2030. The coalition also asked that SNAP data from the government shutdown last fall be excluded from the calculation of payment error rates, as the distribution of benefits in November was marked by chaos and delays.
States are already beginning to consider how to bolster SNAP funding. In Alabama, the state Department of Human Resources is requesting an additional $35 million to help cover additional administrative costs. The Oregon Department of Human Services has asked state lawmakers for an additional $54 million to cover the increased administrative costs, as well as an additional $39 million to improve the state’s error rate; if the error rate doesn’t improve, the agency would need an extra $450 million in the 2027–2029 budget cycle to cover SNAP benefits.
In West Virginia, where one in six residents rely on SNAP, the Republican governor has asked state legislators to increase program spending by $13.5 million in 2027. State officials in Florida—which would see an increase of $1 billion in SNAP costs should its error rate stay the same—have requested an additional $15 million to modernize its eligibility system.
SNAP is administered at a county level in 10 states, including California and New York; the states that delegate administration responsibilities to counties provide services to more than 30 percent of all SNAP recipients. In nine out of 10 of these states, the increase in administrative costs for SNAP will be partially or entirely covered by county governments. Plata-Nino noted that “all counties are not created equal”; in lower-income counties, there may be insufficient funds to shoulder any additional burden.
Rachel Sabella, director of No Kid Hungry New York, an anti-hunger advocacy organization, noted that county officials in her state were already scrambling to implement new work requirements established by the law, and now need to begin accounting for a dramatic increase in the cost of administrating the program. The New York comptroller has estimated that shifting 25 percent more of administrative costs to the state would cost roughly $266 million; in addition to funding a portion of benefits, this could amount to up to $2.2 billion in new SNAP costs per year.
“This is not a magic check that someone can write and fill it in—$2 billion is a major impact,” said Sabella. “We know the state agency and the counties are also looking at their error rates and what’s going to be needed, but there’s also so much being thrown at these agencies at one time. There’s a lot they need to do to protect individuals in the state.”
Plata-Nino said that entire communities would be affected by a loss in SNAP dollars, as states may scramble to shift other funding to cover program benefits. She noted that large portions of state budgets are dedicated to health care and public education, which could in turn face cuts.
“At a local level, that means that your local cities and municipalities are going to get less resources. So whether or not you’re on SNAP, you’re going to notice that it may take longer for a pothole to be filled or that your kids’ school didn’t get extra teachers or extra support,” said Plata-Nino.
The changes also come amid changes to Medicaid imposed by the law, with state lawmakers feeling pressure to fund new requirements. In the near term, this means increased administrative costs for the public insurance program and long-term stress as states lose key funding sources for financing Medicaid. If states choose to cut eligibility or benefits for SNAP and Medicaid, that could leave their poorest residents with fewer options for obtaining food and health care.
By forcing states to make difficult decisions on what initiatives to fully fund, Bigelow said the Trump administration is threatening the efficacy of anti-poverty efforts as a whole.
“If you look at what’s going on with how the federal government is dictating some of these cost shifts to states, it seems to me to be a big coordinated attack on public programs,” said Bigelow.