On February 25, House Republicans narrowly passed their budget resolution, which provides a blueprint for the Republican-controlled Congress to cut at least $1.5 trillion from health, education, and nutrition programs, and more. It’s their first step toward enacting President Trump and Elon Musk’s agenda to slash programs everyday Americans rely on, in order to deliver trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest. According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the combination of this budget and Trump’s tax plan would increase deficits by nearly $5 trillion over the next decade. And their tax plan would deliver half of its benefits to the richest 5 percent of Americans—including Elon Musk himself.
Included in House Republicans’ budget resolution is a plan to slash a staggering $230 billion or more from House Agriculture Committee programs over the next decade. To carry this out, Republicans will need to make deep cuts to the largest program it oversees, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps nearly 43 million Americans—including one in five children—get enough to eat. Ninety percent of people participating in SNAP live in households with children, seniors, or people with disabilities.
The maps below provide original, first-time estimates of just how many children in each state could be impacted by these cuts, as well as how much SNAP cuts could cost household budgets and state economies.
As cruel as they would be to take food off the tables of millions of Americans, the damage from Trump and House Republicans’ planned SNAP cuts goes far beyond increased hunger and hardship. SNAP cuts would also hurt children’s long-term outcomes, raise costs for hard-hit rural households, hurt already-strapped farmers, and shrink our economy.
Hurting Children’s Long-term Outcomes
Families with children are more likely to experience food insecurity, which is why nearly half of American children participate in SNAP at some point in their childhood. About 40 percent of SNAP participants are children younger than age 18—and 12 percent are younger than age 5.
Nearly half of American children participate in SNAP at some point in their childhood.
Studies find SNAP has strong positive effects on children’s outcomes. These effects start even before birth: participation by soon-to-be mothers leads to reduced incidence of neonatal and infant mortality, anemia and other serious health problems, and low birthweight among infants. And for low-income children, participating in SNAP results in improved health, behavior, and academic achievement.
It’s tough to focus on schoolwork when you’re hungry. So it’s not surprising that children’s test scores drop when SNAP’s modest benefits run out at the end of the month, as tends to happen in many low-income families. Yet if House Republicans’ more than 20 percent reduction in program resources took the form of lower benefits, these cuts could take away nearly the equivalent of a full week of SNAP benefits each month.
These cuts could take away nearly the equivalent of a full week of SNAP benefits each month.
Making children hungrier is not only harmful today, but will also weaken America’s future workforce.
The map below shows the number and share of children in each state who could be affected by cuts to SNAP. This includes more than one million children in Texas, New York, and California, as well as more than one-quarter of children in New Mexico, Louisiana, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia.
Map 1
Download map data here.
Increasing Food Costs for Rural Communities
The pain of high food prices is particularly acute in many rural counties. In 2022, nearly 90 percent of counties with the highest food insecurity were in rural areas, even though rural counties make up only 62 percent of all counties. For that reason, SNAP plays an outsized role in rural communities. According to research from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, rural counties had higher SNAP participation rates and greater weekly benefits per participant compared to metropolitan counties in 2021, and SNAP created a larger reduction in the rural poverty rate. And SNAP has more than twice the impact on rural local economies than urban ones, increasing economic output by 1.25 percent and the number of jobs by 1.18 percent (compared to 0.53 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, in urban areas).
While President Trump was campaigning, he promised to bring down grocery costs starting “on Day One” of his presidency, but none of his actions to date directly address high food prices. The latest data shows the price of eggs up 15.2 percent since last year—and continuing to rise. And Americans’ inflation expectations surged sharply upward in February in response to Trump’s inflationary tariff policies.
Reducing families’ SNAP benefits would hurt their ability to put food on the table amid high and rising grocery prices, especially in rural communities.
Hurting American Farmers
Farmers and retailers would also be hard hit by House Republicans’ SNAP cuts, which would translate into billions of dollars of lost revenue each year. Alongside other federal nutrition assistance programs—such as school meals and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—SNAP helps ensure strong, consistent sales for American farmers by boosting low-income families’ purchasing power and demand for agricultural products. In addition to traditional retailers, SNAP directly supports local farmers through demand for produce, meat, and dairy products at farmers’ markets and through initiatives such as Double Up Food Bucks, which provides a dollar-for-dollar match for purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Cuts to SNAP would also compound farmers’ pain from other Trump Administration actions. In response to Trump’s preemptive tariffs, on March 4, China announced retaliatory tariffs on $21 billion in U.S. agriculture exports—from wheat, corn, and cotton to chicken, pork, and beef. Upon taking office, President Trump froze nearly all federal grants—including stopping funds for existing commitments such as loans that help family farmers manage risk, water system upgrades at cattle ranches, and aid to local food banks that purchase agricultural products. And Trump and Elon Musk dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which purchases roughly $2 billion in surpluses and commodities, such as grain from U.S. farmers each year. Finally, cuts to SNAP would also likely damage prospects for reauthorizing the Farm Bill—a major priority for farmers and other agricultural stakeholders—which expired in 2023.
Killing Jobs and Harming the Economy
Farmers aren’t the only workers whose jobs would be threatened by House Republicans’ plans. One estimate indicates that in 2020, SNAP was responsible for nearly 245,000 U.S. jobs—from the grocery and retail industries to manufacturing and transportation—with wages totaling more than $9 billion per year. Economists find that every $1 in SNAP spending translates into as much as $1.74 in stimulus to the U.S. economy. And each additional $1 billion in SNAP benefits supports an estimated 13,560 jobs—including nearly 500 agricultural jobs—during economic downturns. And the boost SNAP provides to local economies and jobs is greatest in high-poverty areas, including rural communities.
House Republicans’ plan would cost state economies an estimated $20.4 billion each year in benefits.
House Republicans’ plan would cost state economies an estimated $20.4 billion each year in benefits. As Map 2 shows, some of the largest negative effects would be in states with the most rural residents, including Texas ($1.6 billion per year), Pennsylvania ($884 million), North Carolina ($701 million), and Ohio ($676 million). The SNAP cuts would take away about $75 per month from the typical household to afford fresh, healthy food, with larger losses for families in very high-cost-of-living states such as Hawaii and Alaska, as Map 2 illustrates.
Map 2
Download map data here.
House Republicans’ cuts to the SNAP program could cost tens of thousands of American jobs. And they would also diminish SNAP’s ability to combat a future recession, which the program does by expanding when people lose employment and income. This “automatic stabilizer” role may soon become increasingly important: in February, consumer confidence showed the sharpest decline in 3.5 years amid worries about President Trump’s tariff policies, stoking concerns about an economic downturn.
Conclusion
It’s cruel to take food away from children and families to pad the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. But more than that, the widespread damage from House Republicans’ SNAP cuts—to our nation’s children, rural communities, farmers, and economy—makes these cuts just downright foolish.
Tags: snap, food insecurity, house budget cuts
Trump and House Republicans’ Plan to Cut Food Assistance Is Even Worse Than It Seems
On February 25, House Republicans narrowly passed their budget resolution, which provides a blueprint for the Republican-controlled Congress to cut at least $1.5 trillion from health, education, and nutrition programs, and more. It’s their first step toward enacting President Trump and Elon Musk’s agenda to slash programs everyday Americans rely on, in order to deliver trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest. According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the combination of this budget and Trump’s tax plan would increase deficits by nearly $5 trillion over the next decade. And their tax plan would deliver half of its benefits to the richest 5 percent of Americans—including Elon Musk himself.
Included in House Republicans’ budget resolution is a plan to slash a staggering $230 billion or more from House Agriculture Committee programs over the next decade. To carry this out, Republicans will need to make deep cuts to the largest program it oversees, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps nearly 43 million Americans—including one in five children—get enough to eat. Ninety percent of people participating in SNAP live in households with children, seniors, or people with disabilities.
The maps below provide original, first-time estimates of just how many children in each state could be impacted by these cuts, as well as how much SNAP cuts could cost household budgets and state economies.
As cruel as they would be to take food off the tables of millions of Americans, the damage from Trump and House Republicans’ planned SNAP cuts goes far beyond increased hunger and hardship. SNAP cuts would also hurt children’s long-term outcomes, raise costs for hard-hit rural households, hurt already-strapped farmers, and shrink our economy.
Hurting Children’s Long-term Outcomes
Families with children are more likely to experience food insecurity, which is why nearly half of American children participate in SNAP at some point in their childhood. About 40 percent of SNAP participants are children younger than age 18—and 12 percent are younger than age 5.
Studies find SNAP has strong positive effects on children’s outcomes. These effects start even before birth: participation by soon-to-be mothers leads to reduced incidence of neonatal and infant mortality, anemia and other serious health problems, and low birthweight among infants. And for low-income children, participating in SNAP results in improved health, behavior, and academic achievement.
It’s tough to focus on schoolwork when you’re hungry. So it’s not surprising that children’s test scores drop when SNAP’s modest benefits run out at the end of the month, as tends to happen in many low-income families. Yet if House Republicans’ more than 20 percent reduction in program resources took the form of lower benefits, these cuts could take away nearly the equivalent of a full week of SNAP benefits each month.
Making children hungrier is not only harmful today, but will also weaken America’s future workforce.
The map below shows the number and share of children in each state who could be affected by cuts to SNAP. This includes more than one million children in Texas, New York, and California, as well as more than one-quarter of children in New Mexico, Louisiana, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia.
Map 1
Download map data here.
Increasing Food Costs for Rural Communities
The pain of high food prices is particularly acute in many rural counties. In 2022, nearly 90 percent of counties with the highest food insecurity were in rural areas, even though rural counties make up only 62 percent of all counties. For that reason, SNAP plays an outsized role in rural communities. According to research from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, rural counties had higher SNAP participation rates and greater weekly benefits per participant compared to metropolitan counties in 2021, and SNAP created a larger reduction in the rural poverty rate. And SNAP has more than twice the impact on rural local economies than urban ones, increasing economic output by 1.25 percent and the number of jobs by 1.18 percent (compared to 0.53 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, in urban areas).
While President Trump was campaigning, he promised to bring down grocery costs starting “on Day One” of his presidency, but none of his actions to date directly address high food prices. The latest data shows the price of eggs up 15.2 percent since last year—and continuing to rise. And Americans’ inflation expectations surged sharply upward in February in response to Trump’s inflationary tariff policies.
Reducing families’ SNAP benefits would hurt their ability to put food on the table amid high and rising grocery prices, especially in rural communities.
Hurting American Farmers
Farmers and retailers would also be hard hit by House Republicans’ SNAP cuts, which would translate into billions of dollars of lost revenue each year. Alongside other federal nutrition assistance programs—such as school meals and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—SNAP helps ensure strong, consistent sales for American farmers by boosting low-income families’ purchasing power and demand for agricultural products. In addition to traditional retailers, SNAP directly supports local farmers through demand for produce, meat, and dairy products at farmers’ markets and through initiatives such as Double Up Food Bucks, which provides a dollar-for-dollar match for purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Cuts to SNAP would also compound farmers’ pain from other Trump Administration actions. In response to Trump’s preemptive tariffs, on March 4, China announced retaliatory tariffs on $21 billion in U.S. agriculture exports—from wheat, corn, and cotton to chicken, pork, and beef. Upon taking office, President Trump froze nearly all federal grants—including stopping funds for existing commitments such as loans that help family farmers manage risk, water system upgrades at cattle ranches, and aid to local food banks that purchase agricultural products. And Trump and Elon Musk dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which purchases roughly $2 billion in surpluses and commodities, such as grain from U.S. farmers each year. Finally, cuts to SNAP would also likely damage prospects for reauthorizing the Farm Bill—a major priority for farmers and other agricultural stakeholders—which expired in 2023.
Killing Jobs and Harming the Economy
Farmers aren’t the only workers whose jobs would be threatened by House Republicans’ plans. One estimate indicates that in 2020, SNAP was responsible for nearly 245,000 U.S. jobs—from the grocery and retail industries to manufacturing and transportation—with wages totaling more than $9 billion per year. Economists find that every $1 in SNAP spending translates into as much as $1.74 in stimulus to the U.S. economy. And each additional $1 billion in SNAP benefits supports an estimated 13,560 jobs—including nearly 500 agricultural jobs—during economic downturns. And the boost SNAP provides to local economies and jobs is greatest in high-poverty areas, including rural communities.
House Republicans’ plan would cost state economies an estimated $20.4 billion each year in benefits. As Map 2 shows, some of the largest negative effects would be in states with the most rural residents, including Texas ($1.6 billion per year), Pennsylvania ($884 million), North Carolina ($701 million), and Ohio ($676 million). The SNAP cuts would take away about $75 per month from the typical household to afford fresh, healthy food, with larger losses for families in very high-cost-of-living states such as Hawaii and Alaska, as Map 2 illustrates.
Map 2
Download map data here.
House Republicans’ cuts to the SNAP program could cost tens of thousands of American jobs. And they would also diminish SNAP’s ability to combat a future recession, which the program does by expanding when people lose employment and income. This “automatic stabilizer” role may soon become increasingly important: in February, consumer confidence showed the sharpest decline in 3.5 years amid worries about President Trump’s tariff policies, stoking concerns about an economic downturn.
Conclusion
It’s cruel to take food away from children and families to pad the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. But more than that, the widespread damage from House Republicans’ SNAP cuts—to our nation’s children, rural communities, farmers, and economy—makes these cuts just downright foolish.
Tags: snap, food insecurity, house budget cuts