At a glance:
- Under President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), Congress passed cuts to the nation’s primary food security program: SNAP
- 23,000 Mainers — including 7,000 children who were not supposed to be affected — have lost their benefits, putting the cost of groceries further out of reach
- OBBB also makes states pay for a portion of benefits for the first time and increases administrative costs, costing Maine tens of millions of dollars in the coming years.
- Some of Maine’s new costs start in 2027 — Congress can still delay or block that cost shift and has until the end of the year to act
Last year, Congress passed and President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), legislation that included the largest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the program’s history. Those changes are pushing Mainers out of the program, both those who lost eligibility, and some — including children — who remain eligible, while adding millions of dollars in costs to the state budget.
SNAP helps Mainers with low incomes afford groceries. Since the beginning of the program, the federal government paid the full cost of SNAP food benefits while states shared the cost of running the program. OBBB changed both who can get SNAP and who pays for it.
The law expanded work reporting requirements to more people, including adults age 55 to 64 and parents of children age 14 and over. It also took away exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who had been in foster care. Some lawfully present immigrants who were previously eligible for SNAP also lost eligibility.
These requirements are often described as encouraging people to work. But research and Maine’s own experience show they mostly create more paperwork. People can lose food assistance because they cannot document enough hours of work or because they miss a form or deadline — even when they are working or should otherwise qualify.
The law will also reduce the value of the average per-person monthly benefit over time, starting this month.
Almost 23,000 Mainers have already lost food assistance
The impact is now clear to see. The SNAP work requirement changes took effect when OBBB became law in July 2025. States began putting the new rules into practice later that year (Maine did so in December 2025 for the work requirement rules and April 2026 for the rules regarding immigrants), and many people encountered them when their SNAP eligibility came up for renewal.
New Maine Department of Health and Human Services data analyzed by Maine Center for Economic Policy show SNAP enrollment has fallen by almost 23,000 people, or 13%, since HR 1 passed. MECEP’s interactive map shows where those losses are happening. OBBB changes to SNAP affect nearly every part of Maine but losses are especially concentrated in rural communities, where SNAP use is higher and steady, year-round work can be harder to find.
Nearly 7,000 people losing assistance are children. That is especially troubling because children were not the main target of the new work reporting requirements. Their losses show how changes aimed at adults can affect entire families. Children may lose assistance when a parent loses eligibility, when immigration rules affect their household, or when complicated guidelines cause an eligible family to fall through the cracks. Declining SNAP enrollment among Maine’s children also creates extra costs to continue the universal free school meals program because it will mean fewer students are automatically eligible for federally-funded free meals.
OBBB sends a huge new bill to Maine
The law does not just cut food assistance. It shifts costs from the federal government to states.
Starting this month, Maine must pay 75% of the cost of administering SNAP, up from 50%. MECEP estimates that change alone will cost the state about $7 million more every year. Maine is also spending millions of dollars on additional workers and technology needed to carry out the law’s new requirements.
An even bigger cost is coming. For the first time in SNAP’s history, states will be required to pay part of the actual cost of food benefits based on their payment error rates. Maine’s 2025 error rate would require the state to pay 15% of SNAP benefit costs — roughly $50 million a year — beginning October 2027.
These “errors” are not the same as fraud. They include both overpayments and underpayments and can happen when Mainers’ expenses, incomes or hours change or agencies make mistakes processing complicated cases.
Maine lawmakers should make every effort to cover benefit costs so that people do not unnecessarily lose assistance — but the job is about to get much harder.
Congress still has time to act
The cut based on error rates is not inevitable.
Members of both parties in the US Senate have discussed delaying the new SNAP benefit cost shift, although they have disagreed over how long that delay should last. Senate Democrats have pushed for two years, while Republican committee leaders have discussed a one-year delay.
When Congress returns after the November election, lawmakers will have another chance to act before the end of the year. MECEP urges Maine’s congressional delegation to support delaying — or fully reversing — the unprecedented shift of SNAP benefit costs onto states. Doing so would give Maine more time to protect families from losing food assistance and prevent tens of millions of dollars in new pressure on the state budget.
Nearly 23,000 Mainers have already lost help buying groceries. Congress should not make the damage worse.