10/07/2026
As of October 1, per the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) Republicans in Congress passed last summer, states and counties are on the hook for 75 percent of the cost to administer the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The change is but a small piece of the bill’s broader shift of up to $1 trillion in federal financial responsibilities for government services to the state and local level.
“Along with hundreds of billions in lost services and benefits, and trillions added to the national debt, that was the price of the 2025 law’s tax cuts, the vast majority of which benefitted the richest Americans,” Features Editor Gillen Tener Martin writes.
To balance their budgets, state and local governments running SNAP must either cut spending or raise additional revenues. “So, this fall, to fund congressional Republicans’ reverse-Robinhood reconciliation bill … counties are setting property tax levies at rates not seen since the 2008 financial crisis,” Martin continues.
For a year now, SNAP recipients (or former recipients) have lived with the OBBBA’s impacts: Additional work requirements, which took effect when Republicans in Congress passed the bill on July 4, 2025, have led over five million people in groups previously exempt, including veterans, homeless individuals, and former foster youth, to lose food benefits.
“These Americans have been feeling the bill’s pain,” Martin writes. “Now, as counties ask their residents to pay more so the rich can pay less, others will, too.”
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/10/02/big-ugly-changes-to-snap-are-hitting-county-budgets/
