Those who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for food aid will see a small boost to their benefits this month as the annual inflation adjustment kicks in at the start of the new fiscal year, but an overhaul of the program’s rules could mean that fewer people are included in the program in the long run.
For single households, the maximum benefit is rising from $298 to $306 per month. For households of four, the maximum benefit is rising from $994 to $1,023 — about $29 a month, or $348 over the course of a year.
At the same time, there are major changes rolling out at the administrative level. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans passed in the summer of 2025, states are now required to pay a larger share of the costs of running the program. Previously, states and the federal government split the overhead costs, but now states will pay 75%.
The change will save the federal government about $16.9 billion over the next five years, or an average of $3.4 billion a year, according to an analysis by the Department of Agriculture. But those savings will show up as new costs at the state level. The Food Research & Action Center, a non-profit focused on hunger eradication, estimates that the costs will be high in states with large populations. California could see the largest increase in costs, upwards of $670 million. New York could need to pay $168 million more, and Pennsylvania $130 million.
In addition to cost-sharing, in October 2027, the federal government is scheduled to start requiring states to pay part of their food aid costs if their error rate in payment exceeds 6%. If they are unable to meet the requirement, California and New York could be forced to pay over $1 billion more per year.
An analysis by the Georgetown Center on Poverty found that the rule changes will sharply raise costs for state governments, which could force them to cut their food aid programs.
“States are required to balance their budgets every year, and most states will be unable to find millions or billions of dollars to backfill the federal cuts with their own funds,” the analysis says. “States are left with no good options: they will have to shift funding away from other priorities—like education and health care—to preserve SNAP, raise new revenues, reduce SNAP enrollments by adding red tape, or end their SNAP programs entirely.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained additional rule changes that will likely further reduce enrollment. Congress raised the work requirement age, so now those between the ages of 18 and 64 must document 80 hours a month of work, education or volunteering to receive benefits. Previously, the requirement ended at age 54.
In addition, households with dependent children under the age of 18 used to be exempt from the work requirements. Now, the exemption applies only to households with children under the age of 14.
The bottom line: The number of SNAP beneficiaries has fallen since Trump took office, dropping from roughly 42 million to 36 million as of June 2026. That total is expected to continue to fall, perhaps dramatically, as new rules take effect in the country’s major food aid program.