The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced potential changes to SNAP this week, which would limit who could access food assistance by blocking people above a certain income and expanding who is subject to work requirements.
The plan still needs final approval and would not go into effect until 2029. It would limit broad-based categorical eligibility, a practice that allows households that use government assistance programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF to automatically qualify for SNAP, even if they exceed the SNAP income threshold.
According to the USDA, this would cut SNAP enrollment by roughly 18% —or 6.3 million of the 36 million people who participate in the program nationwide.
Laura Milliken, the executive director of New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, said the current system streamlines SNAP enrollment and allows families with higher incomes but also higher expenses to get help buying groceries.
“All of us are experiencing high costs of housing and fuel, gas, child care, you name it,” she said. “And so the idea that this would be a time to roll back eligibility for SNAP just makes absolutely no sense.”
She estimated this change would cut roughly 15,000 New Hampshire residents, including 6,000 children, from the program. Around 76,000 people in New Hampshire have used SNAP in recent years.
The proposal also makes existing work requirements more stringent, raising the exemption age from 54 to 64 and removing automatic exemptions for groups like veterans, people experiencing homelessness, parents of teenagers and former foster youth.
Milliken estimated this change in particular could block more than 8,000 New Hampshire residents from the program.
There would also be lower participation in other assistance programs that use SNAP eligibility as an enrollment qualification, like the National School Lunch Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC.
The USDA estimated 1.78 million children nationwide would no longer be categorically eligible for free meals, but stated approximately 97% “would still retain eligibility for free or reduced price school meals based on their household income and could certify for school meals through a different process.”
It estimated 93,000 children would receive reduced price lunch and 28,00 would have to pay full price.
These proposals come after cuts to the program were enacted through the 2025 federal reconciliation bill, which Milliken said saw 4% of local SNAP recipients lose their benefits.
She worries the state will have a hard time absorbing the impact of this proposal.
“It would significantly increase food insecurity in New Hampshire and place a burden on the charitable food system — which is already overburdened — that I think [it] would have a really impossible time meeting,” she said.
There is a 30-day public comment period open until Dec. 10. More information on how to submit a comment can be found here.
