What Is Going On With Food Stamps? 2025 Law, Cuts, and Work Rules

If you’re wondering what is going on with food stamps, the short version is this: a reconciliation law signed on July 4, 2025 is cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by roughly $187 billion over ten years, and it changes who has to work for benefits, who qualifies at all, and how future benefit amounts are set.¹ Some pieces are already in motion. Others phase in through 2028. And they land on top of the end of pandemic-era boosts that already trimmed household benefits in 2023.

The 2025 Law in Plain Terms

P.L. 119-21 is the biggest rewrite of SNAP in decades. The Congressional Budget Office put the nutrition-related savings at nearly $187 billion over ten years.¹ The law reaches almost every part of the program: work rules, benefit calculations, noncitizen eligibility, state administrative funding, and nutrition education. If you get SNAP now, or think you might need it, the changes below are the ones to pay attention to.

Who Now Has to Work to Keep Benefits

The work requirement expansion is the change that will touch the most people. Before this law, able-bodied adults without dependents aged 18 to 54 had to work or train at least 80 hours a month to keep benefits past three months.² The 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act had already raised the age ceiling from 50 and carved out exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults who had aged out of foster care by 24.³

The new law goes much further. The time-limited work requirement now applies to adults 18 through 64. Parents and caretakers are now covered too, once their youngest child turns 14. The exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth are gone. And the 2030 sunset that would have automatically ended the expanded requirements has been removed.¹ New exemptions were added for Indians, Urban Indians, and California Indians as defined in cross-referenced federal statutes.

The requirement itself is unchanged: 80 hours a month of paid work, volunteer work, job training, or some combination.² Miss that in a given month with no exemption, and you can lose benefits after three countable months. In practice, millions of adults who were previously outside this rule, including parents of teenagers and people in their late 50s and early 60s, are now inside it.

How Benefit Amounts Are Changing

SNAP starts with the Thrifty Food Plan, USDA’s estimate of what a nutritious low-cost diet costs a family of four. Maximum allotments flow from that number and are adjusted every October 1.⁴ Your actual benefit is the maximum for your household size minus 30 percent of your net income. Zero countable income means the full maximum.⁵

Starting no earlier than October 2027, USDA can still reevaluate the Thrifty Food Plan, but a reevaluation can no longer raise the plan’s cost faster than general inflation.¹ That matters because USDA’s 2021 reevaluation boosted maximum allotments by roughly 20 percent. That kind of jump is off the table going forward. Annual cost-of-living adjustments continue, but tied to the Consumer Price Index rather than a rethink of what a healthy diet costs.

Utility Allowance and Internet Rules

When your benefit is calculated, you can deduct excess shelter costs, meaning rent or mortgage plus utilities and taxes that exceed half your income after other deductions. Most households use a state Standard Utility Allowance (SUA) rather than itemizing. Many states also used a “heat and eat” workaround: a small LIHEAP energy assistance payment automatically qualified a household for the full SUA, raising the shelter deduction and the benefit.

The new law closes that door for households without an elderly or disabled member. A LIHEAP payment of any amount no longer qualifies them for the SUA.¹ Households with someone age 60 or older or with a disability are not affected. Household internet costs can no longer be counted in the excess shelter deduction, reversing a rule finalized in early 2025 that had added basic internet as an allowable utility expense. For households without elderly or disabled members, the excess shelter deduction is capped at $744 per month in the 48 contiguous states for FY2026.⁴

Noncitizens Losing Eligibility

The law narrows which noncitizens can get SNAP down to three groups: lawful permanent residents (still subject to the existing five-year waiting period), Cuban-Haitian entrants, and migrants from Compact of Free Association nations lawfully residing in the United States.¹ Other categories who previously qualified, including refugees, asylees, and certain trafficking victims, face a loss of eligibility as the provisions are implemented.

Where Income Limits and Benefits Stand Right Now

For the fiscal year running October 2025 through September 2026, most households need gross monthly income at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, and net income at or below 100 percent.⁵ Here are the FY2026 limits for the 48 contiguous states and D.C.:⁶

1 person: $1,696 gross / $1,305 net
2 people: $2,292 gross / $1,763 net
3 people: $2,888 gross / $2,221 net
4 people: $3,483 gross / $2,680 net
5 people: $4,079 gross / $3,138 net
Each additional person: add $596 gross / $459 net

Households that include someone 60 or older or with a disability only need to meet the net income limit; the gross test does not apply.⁷

Most households can hold up to $3,000 in countable resources like cash and bank balances, or $4,500 if a member is 60 or older or has a disability.⁵ Your home and most personal belongings don’t count. In practice, the asset test rarely bites right now because 46 states use broad-based categorical eligibility, which waives or raises asset limits for most applicants. USDA has signaled a proposed regulation that could eliminate that policy, which would reimpose asset tests on millions of households currently outside them.

Maximum monthly allotments for FY2026 in the 48 contiguous states and D.C.:⁸

1 person: $298
2 people: $546
3 people: $785
4 people: $994
5 people: $1,183
6 people: $1,421
Each additional person: add $218

Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Virgin Islands get higher allotments reflecting local food costs. Most households receive less than the maximum because 30 percent of their net income is subtracted. A family of four with $2,000 in net monthly income, for example, would see $600 taken off the $994 maximum, leaving $394.

The Pandemic Cliff That Still Shapes Today’s Benefits

During the pandemic, every SNAP household got at least the maximum allotment for its size regardless of income, with a minimum boost of $95 a month. Congress ended those emergency allotments in late 2022 legislation, and the final payments went out in February or March 2023 depending on the state.⁹ Since then, benefits have been calculated using the standard formula. A household of three with some countable income might have gone from $785 to under $400 overnight. Food prices haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, so many families were already tight before the 2025 law layered on more changes.

State Cost Shifts That Could Slow Down Service

The law also pushes costs onto states, which could indirectly affect how quickly your local office handles applications and renewals. Starting in FY2027, the federal government will cover only 25 percent of state SNAP administrative costs, down from roughly 50 percent.¹ Starting in FY2028, states with high error rates in benefit calculations will have to pay a share of actual benefit costs: 5 percent for error rates between 6 and 8 percent, 10 percent for 8 to 10 percent, and 15 percent at or above 10 percent. Mandatory funding for SNAP-Ed, the nutrition education and obesity prevention program, ends in FY2026.

Federal law still requires agencies to process applications within 30 days.¹⁰ If you apply and hear nothing by then, call your local office. The deadline is a legal obligation, not a target.

New EBT Cards in the Mail

A wave of card-skimming fraud pushed USDA to move states off the old magnetic-stripe EBT cards and onto chip-enabled ones. Many states are already sending them out.¹¹ Chip cards generate a unique code per transaction, which makes the skimming trick that drove recent fraud largely useless. If your state hasn’t sent a new card yet, ask your local office about the timeline. In the meantime, check your balance often and report unauthorized transactions right away.

If You’re Denied or Cut Off

Because so much is changing at once, you may see a denial, a reduced benefit, or a case closure that you think is wrong. You have the right to request a fair hearing. Federal regulations let you appeal your current benefit level at any time during your certification period, and you can challenge a denial of restored benefits within one year. Your local agency has to send written notice before taking an adverse action, and that notice must explain the reason and how to request a hearing. If you file your hearing request before the effective date of the reduction or termination, your benefits generally continue at the existing level until the hearing decision comes down. That protection matters, because it’s easy to assume benefits stop the moment the notice arrives.

1
Congressional Research Service. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Related Provisions of P.L. 119-21
2
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Work Requirements
3
United States Department of Agriculture. SNAP Provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 Questions and Answers
4
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Information
5
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Eligibility
6
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP FY2026 Income Eligibility Standards
7
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Special Rules for the Elderly or Disabled
8
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP FY2026 Maximum Allotments and Deductions
9
USDA. SNAP Emergency Allotments Are Ending
10
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Application Processing Timeliness
11
Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP EBT Chip and Tap Cards Are Coming Soon