House Republicans on Monday proposed a series of sharp restrictions on the federal anti-hunger program known as food stamps, seeking to limit its funding and benefits as part of a sprawling package to advance President Trump’s tax cuts.
The proposal, included in a draft measure to be considered by the House Agriculture Committee this week, would require states to supply some of the funding for food stamps while forcing more of its beneficiaries to obtain employment in exchange for federal aid.
The moves could result in potentially millions of low-income families losing access to the safety net program. But G.O.P. leaders insist that their approach would improve the provision of food stamp benefits while helping to defray the cost of Mr. Trump’s expensive legislative ambitions.
House Republicans said in a statement on Monday that their proposal emphasized “reinforcing work, rooting out waste, and instituting long-overdue accountability incentives to control costs and end executive and state overreach.”
The Republican overhaul specifically targets the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP With a roughly $110 billion annual budget, it is the federal government’s largest nutrition assistance initiative, providing monthly allotments to an average of 42 million people in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages the program.
Proponents of the food stamp program say that it has long served as a critical lifeline for low-income families by ensuring that they do not experience hunger in a nation where about one in seven reported food insecurity at some point during 2023, according to federal data released in September.
Republicans long have decried elements of SNAP, arguing that states have mishandled federal money in ways that have allowed people who should not qualify for the benefits to receive aid. Those concerns prompted Republicans to tighten eligibility for food stamps in 2023, primarily by requiring more adults to obtain employment in order to collect federal assistance.
Unsatisfied with the early results of those strictures, House Republicans on Monday took the first steps toward tightening them further.
As part of their forthcoming package to cut taxes and reduce federal spending, Republicans proposed expanding the existing work requirements to cover food stamp recipients up to age 64, including those with children who are at least age seven.
That amounts to a significant expansion of existing law, which currently only requires beneficiaries up to age 54 to work in exchange for SNAP, and excludes those with dependents. Studying similar Republican proposals in recent years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that work requirements and other rules could result in millions of enrollees losing access to the program. (The budget watchdog has not yet released an analysis on the party’s newest proposal.)
Republicans also proposed limiting nutrition aid to only U.S. citizens and green card holders. States would be required for the first time to contribute funding to the federal food stamp program beginning in 2028. And the Republican proposal would try to limit future administrations from boosting the benefits that low-income Americans receive in nutrition aid.
The Republican proposals are likely to anger congressional Democrats and anti-poverty groups, many of whom have pushed for more generous federal nutrition aid. Some states have also signaled in recent days that they may struggle to cover a share of the program’s costs, potentially further cutting into the availability of benefits.
“Slashing billions from SNAP would deepen hunger, increase poverty, and weaken communities,” said Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy group. “Instead of shifting costs to states — knowing that states cannot take these added costs on — and cutting SNAP, we must ensure access to the nutrition that everyone needs to thrive.”
