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Alliance Alert: Over the weekend there were troubling developments in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Alliance for Rights and Recovery is closely monitoring these changes and will continue to share updates, resources, and advocacy opportunities to ensure ����������ers have the food support they need during this time of heightened food insecurity.

USDA Signals Mass Recertification Requirement
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump administration intends to require millions of SNAP recipients to reapply for their benefits, framing it as an anti-fraud measure. This proposal, made without a clear timeline, process, or explanation, is alarming and unnecessary.

SNAP recipients already undergo regular recertification every 6 to 12 months, depending on state rules, and must report income changes throughout the year. Forcing everyone to reapply simultaneously would create enormous administrative burdens on states and confusion for participants who already navigate complex requirements.

A mass recertification push would also put millions at risk of losing benefits simply due to paperwork errors, missed deadlines, or system overload, not because their eligibility changed.

New Federal Restrictions Already Taking Effect
Even with SNAP funded through September 2026 under the post-shutdown deal, significant policy changes included in HR1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) are still rolling out and will increase hunger and hardship:

• Expanded work requirements now apply to nearly all adults under age 64, including veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth, who were previously exempt.
• New eligibility restrictions are already disqualifying certain immigrant groups. The CBO estimates 90,000 people could lose benefits each month under this change alone.
• States must begin covering most SNAP administrative costs (75% up from a previous 50%) by 2027, while facing more paperwork and eligibility oversight, a contradictory mandate that will strain state agencies.
• Additional cuts and restrictions will cause an estimated 5 to 6 million people to lose some amount of SNAP assistance.

States such as New Mexico and Massachusetts are already scrambling to respond, creating task forces and requesting federal waivers to mitigate harm.

Alliance Priorities and Next Steps
The Alliance for Rights and Recovery remains steadfast in our commitment to protecting food access for low-income ����������ers. As fear and uncertainty continue, especially after the chaos caused during the shutdown, we will:

• Monitor all federal SNAP policy updates and provide timely alerts to our community.
• Advocate for federal and state actions to prevent benefit losses and reduce administrative barriers.
• Push back against mass recertification requirements that will only cause confusion, delays, and unnecessary hunger.
• Work with partners and advocates statewide to help people maintain access to the food they need.

SNAP is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the country. These proposed recertification requirements and new restrictions will not reduce fraud; they will increase hunger.

We will continue fighting to ensure that individuals and families are not denied food because of political decisions, bureaucratic obstacles, or confusing new rules.

SNAP Recipients Will Have to Reapply for Benefits, USDA Secretary Says
By Truman Lewis | Consumer Affairs | November 17, 2025

• Agriculture secretary says millions will be told to reapply for SNAP benefits
• Critics warn fraud claims are overstated and rules already require frequent recertification
• Push comes amid major federal cuts and political pressure to show crackdown on “waste”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the Trump administration will require millions of low-income Americans to reapply for food stamps as part of a sweeping effort to crack down on alleged program “fraud.”

Rollins told Newsmax on Thursday that she intends to “have everyone reapply for their benefits,” saying the goal is to ensure that every person receiving a taxpayer-funded SNAP benefit “literally [is] vulnerable and … can’t survive without it.” She offered no timeline or details on how the reapplication process would work.

SNAP under renewed political scrutiny
Her comments come amid heightened attention to the , which serves nearly 42 million people and cost about $100 billion in fiscal year 2024. Funding lapses during the recent government shutdown fueled conservative criticism of the program’s reach and cost — including from President Donald Trump.

While fraud can involve participants misrepresenting income, retailers trading benefits for cash, or criminals skimming EBT cards, anti-hunger advocates argue the problem is far smaller than the administration claims. The average SNAP benefit is roughly $6 per day, they note, and participants must already report changes in income and recertify as often as every six months under state rules.

New oversight push includes data demands
Rollins has signaled a broader SNAP overhaul in the coming weeks. She has already directed states to submit sensitive participant data, including Social Security numbers — a request that is now being challenged in court.

On Thursday, she said preliminary data from 29 states show 186,000 deceased individuals are “receiving a check” through SNAP, an assertion likely to intensify the administration’s claims of systemwide waste. Checks aren’t used in the SNAP program. Recipients get their funds on a debit card. 

Cuts and work rules reshape the program
The push arrives after months of negotiations over federal spending and the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July, which enacted a $186 billion cut to SNAP along with stricter work requirements and tighter eligibility rules. Officials have framed the changes as part of a larger effort to reduce government spending through the DOGE initiative.

Trump this week reiterated his view that SNAP enrollment is too high. “People keep talking about SNAP. But SNAP is supposed to be if you’re down and out,” he said on Fox News, according to . While stressing that people who truly need assistance should receive it, he argued that “able-bodied” individuals sometimes leave work because benefits are “easier,” adding, “That’s not the purpose of it.”

SNAP Is Funded Again. States Still Have to Deal With Trump’s New Eligibility Restrictions.
By Raymond Fernandez, NOTUS | The City | November 14, 2025

With the government shutdown ended and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program assured through September 2026, millions of Americans are about to start getting regular food aid again.

But the strain on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program isn’t going to let up entirely, and more of the burden is about to shift to the states.

The reconciliation package — the sweeping bill passed by Republicanslast summer — has set in motion some of the most significant changes to SNAP in decades. The law , restricts eligibility for  and  of the program’s administrative costs.

“The changes and cuts to SNAP, approved by the Republican Congress and signed by President Trump, will undermine the program’s foundation and significantly increase state and local costs. They will also reduce benefits to SNAP households, making it even more difficult for ����������ers to purchase essential food at a time when food prices are up, and household budgets are already stretched thin,” Nicolette Simmonds, a spokesperson for ���������� Gov. Kathy Hochul, told NOTUS in a statement.

States are already taking steps to try to prepare for this. In Massachusetts, for example, Gov. Maura Healey created a statewide  in direct response to the changes. The thinking is that it will help offset the effect of the federal cuts with state resources and coordination among food assistance organizations.

“There are changes that will cause some people to lose all their benefits, and some people to lose some of their benefits. There’s changes that are going to place additional burden on the state, where they’re going to have to cover additional administrative costs and potentially partial costs of the benefits that are provided, which is the first time that’s ever been required,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, told NOTUS.

And some of those changes are starting to take effect.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which did not respond to a request for comment, said it was unable to do much operationally on SNAP during the shutdown, even pushing back on using contingency funds to keep the program afloat. Still, in that period the department directed agencies to start enforcing one of its new rules to comply with the reconciliation package.

“Following the OBBB, some alien groups previously eligible for SNAP are no longer eligible,” the USDA said in  issued on Oct. 31, directing state agencies to immediately begin implementing new eligibility requirements aimed at excluding people with certain legal immigration statuses.

The Congressional Budget Office  that at least 90,000 people would become ineligible for SNAP benefits monthly due to this new requirement.

But it’s not the only change that will take a toll on eligibility.

Under the reconciliation package, work requirements  to apply to all able-bodied adults without dependents.

Most adults under the age of 64 will now be required to submit documentation proving they are working, volunteering, or in a training program for at least 80 hours per month. These expanded SNAP work requirements will now also apply to veterans, individuals experiencing homelessness and former foster youth.

Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat from ����������, called the changes “horrendous.”

“The idea is, oh, they’re late with your application, or your application was incomplete — and people will go without the support they need to feed their families,” she said. “It’s going to be a real financial burden to every state, every municipality.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities  that 5 to 6 million people are at risk of losing “some amount of SNAP” benefits because of the expansion of work requirements.

“They’re betting on people not filling out the paperwork right,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, the state with the highest reliance on the SNAP program in the country, told NOTUS. “They’re kicking people off because they missed a deadline, because they checked the wrong box. Let’s make sure we give people the help so that they comply with the requirements.”

New Mexico state officials told NOTUS that about 55,750 New Mexicans will become subject to the new rules, and roughly 20,000 may lose food benefits entirely by April 2026 if they fail to meet the new federal criteria.

New Mexico asked the USDA for a federal waiver to temporarily suspend requiring able-bodied individuals to provide proof of employment in areas with high unemployment. The waiver was granted, but it expires at the end of the year.

The fight over SNAP funding that played out during the shutdown is raising concern about how this will play out.

“I’m concerned in general that this administration, over the last two and a half months, has shown during the shutdown that they’re willing to do things that are not only confusing and make it difficult to administer the program, but unlawful, including withholding funding,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury told NOTUS. “I don’t have any confidence in this administration and their execution on the program, and we’re going to be watching it closely.”

The USDA directed states to begin implementing the expanded work requirements at the start of November, even though it’s unclear how state agencies will do that.

The reconciliation bill also cuts back on how much funding is given to each state to administer the program.  from the USDA stating the provision “reduces the amount that USDA may pay a state agency for administrative costs involved in its operation of SNAP to 25%, from the current 50%, beginning in fiscal year 2027.”

Those changes are expected to go into effect as soon as next September and are part of the reconciliation package’s goal to cut the SNAP program by at least $187 billion by 2034.

“It is completely antithetical to, on the one hand, implement new, very burdensome, complicated rules for eligibility, and on the other hand, take resources away from states that they would need to implement such eligibility rules,” said Kyle Ross, a policy analyst at Center for American Progress.

NOTUS reached out to 13 agencies with some of the highest recipient reliance on the SNAP program across the country to understand how they were planning to adopt and implement the new requirements, as well as how they were notifying their recipients if their benefits had changed.

“The uncertainty and confusion surrounding SNAP benefits that has spread across the country is unfair to the over one million Michigan residents that rely on these benefits to put food on the table and support their families,” said a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the only agency to respond. “We will continue to do everything we can to assist those in need.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between  and THE CITY.