Michigan recipients fear food assistance cuts that could cost state $890M

• Possible federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could be coming under a US House-passed budget bill
• About 1.5M Michiganders use SNAP benefits, and some residents say cuts could force them off the program due to work requirements 
• If proposed cuts are enacted, it also could cost the state nearly $900M a year – something one lawmaker says Michigan could not handle

LANSING — Residents and state officials are sounding the alarm over potential cuts to a food assistance program that aids around 1.5 million Michiganders, saying a federal proposal could hurt needy families and cost the state nearly $900 million a year in the process.  

“Trying to make ends meet from month to month is difficult,” said Kathleen Herd, a 64-year-old who receives benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) while raising her 15-year-old grandson and 16-year-old granddaughter in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. 

Herd, who testified before Michigan lawmakers on Tuesday in a state Senate hearing, identified herself as disabled and said she feared proposed congressional cuts could jeopardize her food assistance and make life “extremely difficult” for her family.

Among other things, a tax cut plan backed by President Donald Trump seeks to partially offset deficit spending by cutting federal spending on Medicaid and SNAP, including new or expanded work requirements for both programs. 

Currently, adults aged 18 to 54 without children can only qualify for three months of food benefits in a three-year period unless they are working at least 20 hours a week or can otherwise prove they qualify for an exemption. 

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as approved by the US House and now up for consideration in the Senate, would scale back existing work requirement exemptions for adults with kids and older Americans. 

Adults would not have to prove they were working to qualify for the program if they had a dependent age 7 or under, down from 18, or were at least 65 years old, up from 55. 

The latter provision is one that Michigan's State Budget Office warns could “disproportionately impact low-income seniors, many of whom will struggle to meet new work requirements.”

The federal proposal is projected to reduce federal spending on SNAP by $285.7 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. 

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The expanded work requirements will likely mean about 3.2 million fewer Americans receive SNAP benefits, according to the nonpartisan analysis. Another 1.3 million Americans might lose benefits if states can't afford their mandated payments or scale back programs as a result of the federal cuts. 

States would be required to cover between 5% and 25% of benefit costs, plus 75% of administrative costs, which the State Budget Office estimates would cost Michigan around $890 million a year. 

The federal government currently covers all SNAP program benefits in Michigan, which in the 2024 fiscal year totaled over $3.2 billion. Last year, the benefits amounted to about $188 worth of food per month on average. 

US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, defended the possible SNAP changes in May, saying on CBS’ “Face The Nation” that states would better administer the program and stymie possible SNAP fraud if they had “more skin in the game.”

Michigan Republicans, like US Rep. Lisa McClain of Bruce Township, have also championed the legislation as a way to stop “waste, fraud and abuse” while helping to offset major tax cuts promised by the Trump administration. 

McClain recently highlighted the May arrest of a federal employee and five others accused of a “sprawling fraud and bribery scheme that generated over $66 million in unauthorized transactions" through the SNAP program. 

House Republicans want to “ensure SNAP is more efficient and effective for those who truly need and deserve the benefit,” she wrote on social media. 

Critics say such cases are rare, however, and independent fact checkers have confirmed the legislation would go far beyond combating fraud, also cutting SNAP benefits for law-abiding citizens. 

The proposed changes are concerning to Hillsdale County resident Melissa Miles, who as a single mother to an immunocompromised 4-year-old and full-time student at Eastern Michigan University, said she’s already overwhelmed just trying to survive.

SNAP benefits have been essential for ensuring her son has the nutrition 

“he needs to continue to grow in a healthy manner,” Miles said, adding that if her family “didn’t have SNAP, I can’t bear to think how much sicker my child would be.”

As of 2024, about 15% of Michigan’s overall population received SNAP benefits according to a recent State Budget Office review. Of those, more than 59% are families with children, more than 46% are working families and more than 39% have elderly or disabled family members.

The analysis also suggested federal cuts could harm Michigan grocery stores, farmers markets and other stores in the state, where roughly 10,000 retailers serve SNAP recipients. 

State Sen. Jeff Irwin, an Ann Arbor Democrat and chair of the Housing and Human Services Committee, told Bridge Michigan he does not think the state government could absorb the $890 million projected price tag for the SNAP program if the federal cuts are enacted as approved by the US House. 

“I don’t know how we make room for that,” he said, adding that the proposed age threshold change “could put a lot of young kids in a bad position.”