Lori Covelli, 53, an unemployed social worker in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who last year was collecting $760 per month in food stamps, recently lost all her benefits after failing to find a job and running afoul of the program’s work requirements. She had hoped to regain that aid on her 54th birthday, when she would age out of those restrictions, but then learned that a new federal law had extended the program’s work requirement to 64.
“They were saying, ‘Just try to hold on until you turn 54,'” Covelli told CBS News in recounting discussions with employees at her state’s office for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal name for the food-stamp program.
This summer — several months before Covelli turned 54 — she received a letter from SNAP that dashed those hopes. It told her that under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), which President Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, the work requirement had been extended for people up to age 64.
“That’s a long way off. At this point, SNAP benefits are essentially over for me,” she said.
Covelli said she’s applying to about 10 jobs a week but has so far failed to find employment. In the meantime, she’s not sure how she’ll cope financially, especially given the rising cost of groceries, utilities and other daily essentials.
“It feels as though people are being punished” by the SNAP changes, she added.
In May, President Trump said that millions of people have been “lifted off” of SNAP due to a stronger economy. But anti-hunger experts and food-stamp recipients say that doesn’t reflect what they are seeing, such as a job market where many are struggling to find work while coping with higher food costs.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CBS News that Mr. Trump is “strengthening SNAP for the Americans who need it by ensuring these programs are sustainable for future generations.”
“The Working Families Tax Cuts bill restores basic work requirements, prioritizes American citizens, and implements reasonable cost-sharing measures with states to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse,” she said in an email.
October SNAP changes
About 5.2 million Americans like Covelli have lost SNAP benefits since the OBBBA was enacted, according to a recent analysis from the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), an anti-hunger advocacy group.
SNAP enrollment now stands at its lowest level since 2019. Experts predict that more people will drop out of the program in the coming months as the 2025 tax and spending law imposes additional changes to SNAP.
SNAP’s overhaul is creating new hurdles for applicants and heavier financial burdens for the states that administer the program, experts said. Starting Oct. 1, states will be required to pay 75% of the program’s administrative costs, up from 50%.
Starting in October 2027, states with high SNAP payment error rates also will have to pay up to 15% of benefits, a cost the federal government has previously covered entirely. Republican lawmakers have said the error rates indicate fraud, although anti-hunger advocates say they occur for routine mistakes like misspellings or missing addresses.
Stricter work requirements for SNAP are adding more pressure, with experts noting that the new rules have contributed to the decline in enrollment. Under OBBBA, food-stamp recipients aged 18 to 64 are required to work or volunteer at least 80 hours per month.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, said the Trump administration’s changes to SNAP are “absolutely unprecedented.”
FitzSimons said the more stringent work requirements and states scrambling to keep up with the funding changes enacted under OBBBA are creating confusion and application backlogs in many state SNAP agencies.
“There is a lot of chaos going on in SNAP, and it is harming the people the program was designed to serve,” she said. “We are concerned that some states could drop out of the program because they’re not able to cover the cost.”
Alabama could be one of those states. Its SNAP director, Brandon Hardin, told the Alabama Reflector in July that the payment error rate issue could put the state on the hook for $174 million in additional costs. He added that one option would be for the state to end the food stamp program if it fails to lower its error rate and reduce the cost burden.
Biggest changes “in a generation”
Some states say they have been overwhelmed with managing the SNAP changes mandated by the OBBBA. Arizona residents’ enrollment has dropped by 53% over the last year, the steepest of any state. In a June statement, its Department of Economic Security, which runs its SNAP program, said it had “been forced to rapidly overhaul our process to administer vital nutrition benefits” due to the OBBBA.
The law implemented “the most sweeping structural changes and strict administrative penalties seen in a generation,” the agency added.
The Arizona agency told CBS News that it had implemented changes “to avoid disastrous financial penalties and preserve food assistance for as many Arizonans as possible.”
Since those changes, the program has stabilized and added 57,000 more enrollees in August compared to April, the agency added.
“Although historical staffing shortages and legacy technology systems intensified the impact of the sweeping federal changes, we have reversed the trend in our caseload,” Brett Bezio, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Economic Security, told CBS News.
“I have to prove that I’m sick”
Some food-stamp recipients told CBS News they’ve struggled to get responses from their states’ SNAP departments as they navigate the new requirements.
Angie Aranda, 49, of Pueblo, Colorado, said she is seeking a waiver to the work requirements due to a chronic health condition, Crohn’s disease. She’s trying to find remote jobs so she can work at home and have easy access to a bathroom.
“I’ve probably put in about 30 applications,” she said.
Aranda is seeking the medical waiver after the OBBBA changed its rules governing families with children. Before the law, people with children under 18 were exempt from the SNAP work requirement, but the law changed that to parents of kids under 14. Her children are 17 and 14, meaning she no longer qualifies for a work exemption.
Getting a clear answer from her state’s SNAP agency about how to apply for a medical waiver has been challenging, and she worries that her family’s roughly $900 in monthly food aid is at risk, Aranda said.
“I went to school to not be in this situation. I did volunteer work. I did lots of stuff until I got sick,” she said. “And me being sick now, I have to prove that I’m sick over and over and over again.”
$6.25 a day
The average SNAP benefit across the U.S. is about $6.25 per person per day, or roughly $190 per month, according to FRAC. That isn’t enough to cover a typical meal in about 99% of U.S. counties, according to a 2025 analysis from the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
CBS Data Team
For many SNAP recipients, the OBBBA’s changes come at a time when they are already grappling with higher costs for everything from groceries to gasoline.
“I’m spending exactly what I’ve gotten for food,” said Lekishia Rivera, a SNAP recipient based in Fort Pierce, Florida. I try my hardest not to go over the budget, which is extremely hard when you have a child.”
Rivera, a single mom, recently found out that her daughter, who has autism, was removed from SNAP after Rivera reapplied for Medicaid. Rivera now collects roughly $300 in monthly food stamps, down from $546 per month when her daughter was also getting benefits.
Grocery prices have jumped 32% since early 2020, according to Consumer Price Index data. Inflation has picked up in 2026 due to higher energy costs sparked by the Iran war, adding to the affordability crunch facing many households. The national average price of a gallon of gas is $4.46, according to AAA, up about 50% since before the war started.
“If it’s more expensive to get groceries, how can removing SNAP help?” said Ailen Arreaza, executive director of ParentsTogether Action, a parent advocacy group. A recent survey of their members who receive food stamps found that two-thirds had seen their benefits cut in the last year. “They aren’t filling prescriptions as much, they’re having to cut back on meals and they themselves are eating less.”
“Pandemic on steroids”
Cyndi Kirkhart, CEO of Facing Hunger Food Bank in Huntington, West Virginia, said her organization is seeing increased demand since the new law changed SNAP. The higher age limit for the work requirements is hitting her community especially hard, given that many in the 54- to 64-year-old age group are taking care of their grandchildren because their adult children are coping with opioid or other addiction issues, she said.
“Maybe they qualified for benefits before, but now, because of the age increase, they don’t,” Kirkhart said. “And we have very limited childcare, so they still have to provide care for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But then they’ve got to spend time outside of the home, in addition to try and get benefits.”
“This is the pandemic on steroids with little food and little money,” she added.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture halted its annual study on food insecurity in 2025, saying at the time that the report was “redundant, costly [and] politicized.” FitzSimons of FRAC said her group is asking lawmakers to reinstate the study because of the need to understand the impact of SNAP cuts across the U.S.
A study released last year by Purdue University researchers found that food insecurity — meaning a lack of consistent access to nutritious food — rose in the U.S. last year between January and October. About 14% of households reported experiencing food insecurity during that period, up from 12.5% in 2024. The researchers cited inflation and SNAP cuts among the factors driving the increase.
“We have families begging for help for food, and it’s so heartbreaking because I feel like I need to help, but I can’t because I need help,” said Aranda, who noted that her husband works for their county government but that their earnings are still low enough that they themselves qualify for assistance.
She added, “We’re paycheck to paycheck and behind already. So you cut my benefits out with no extra income, and everything’s still increasing. I have no idea what we’re going to do.”
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