By Lauren Bauer, Member of MAZON’s Board of Directors
This Thursday, the Senate Agriculture Committee will mark up the Farm Bill, which includes a one-year delay and even higher penalties for the SNAP state cost-shift, which for the first time ends full federal funding for SNAP benefits.
In mid-June, the director of Alabama’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) program made what might seem like a shocking admission. Speaking to how his state is approaching the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) policy that ends full federal funding of SNAP benefits by pushing some costs onto states, Brandon Hardin laid out three options: “pay the cost share if we’re over 6%, get the rate under 6%, or end the program.” End the program. Arizona and a handful of anonymous states have also said that they may withdraw from participating in SNAP due to the OBBBA cost shift policy.
This is shocking and deeply harmful to families in these states and the economy overall. I, however, am not surprised. These admissions are honest. They are also consistent with my own research with Georgetown Professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, which predicted that SNAP would no longer operate in some states after OBBBA implementation.
Don’t just take my word for it. Ending the SNAP program in Alabama? It’s “a very real possibility” Laura Lester, CEO of Feeding Alabama told me. Jimmy Wright, of Wright’s Market in Opelika said that the cost-shift is “incredibly concerning.”
Because OBBBA changed the structure of SNAP by ending guaranteed full federal funding of program benefits and because some states can’t afford to shoulder these costs, states will cut SNAP participation substantially and others will end their participation in the program entirely. We are already seeing considerable SNAP enrollment declines. And it will get worse the next time there is a recession because states still have to balance their budgets and won’t be able to balance growing SNAP participation with declining revenues.
If OBBBA holds, starting in October 2027, a state could pay 0, 5, 10, or 15 percent of benefits that year based solely on the state’s “payment error rate.” The SNAP payment error rate is a measure of how accurately states make eligibility and benefit determinations for participating households. It is not a measure of fraud. Under the Farm Bill text that the Senate Agriculture Committee is considering this week, this policy would delay the start until October 2028 but eventually states could pay up to 20 percent. Each year the share a state has to pay will change based on the payment error rate.
But the payment error rate was never supposed to be used in a high stakes accountability system. For reasons outside a state’s control, it’s hard to improve; and if you can’t improve on the measure through better program administration, then the cost-shift policy will hit states largely at random. Lester added, “You cannot attach the existence of the SNAP program to such a flawed evaluation system.”
The consequences to Alabamians and anyone who should receive SNAP but won’t due to this policy will be undeniable. Carol Gundlach of Alabama Arise says, “It’s really very horrifying to think about.” Founder and Principal of Monte Sano Strategies and SNAP expert Jane Adams says that ending the program “would be absolutely devastating.” Lester knows that Alabamians would “go hungry.” Wright agrees, saying Alabamians “will eat less and they will eat worse.”
The consequences don’t only fall on people, but on the economy overall. Spending on SNAP stimulates the economy, generating more in economic activity than it costs. And it sustains the grocery sector — not just for SNAP participants, but for everyone who shops. Wright told me that the Grocer’s Association did an analysis of the 752 SNAP authorized retailers in Alabama. They found that almost half will be deeply impacted if SNAP ends in the state, with 117 in danger of closing entirely.
While there’s agreement that holding states more accountable in terms of how they’re serving SNAP-participating families is critical, this isn’t that. Wright likened the policy to speeding. You pull over people who need to get a ticket, but you don’t shut the highway down forever.
Any policy that leads to the end of SNAP in any state should be stopped. It’s time to be Alabama honest: Congress should delay the implementation of the cost shift for more than a year (forever) and fully fund SNAP benefits. States should not have to worry about how they’re going to pay for SNAP and should work to enroll all eligible families in the program.