Washington D.C — The Atlantic recently detailed how the Republican Tax Law has triggered a nationwide food affordability crisis. According to the article, the law cuts $186 billion from SNAP and leaves states facing an impossible choice: absorb the new costs, cut other essential services, or reduce food assistance for families. Instead of strengthening the program while families continue struggling with the rising cost of groceries, congressional Republicans have put millions of working families at risk of going hungry while giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich.
“Congressional Republicans created an impossible choice for states: take on billions in new costs, cut essential services, or reduce the SNAP program that 37 million Americans rely on. Now, millions more Americans may have to choose between paying their rent or putting food on the table for their family. It’s unconscionable,” said Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal. “Families should never be pushed into impossible choices so congressional Republicans can deliver more tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Republicans in Congress should reverse these harmful SNAP cuts, restore full funding for the program, and put working families ahead of giveaways for the rich.”
The Atlantic: The Coming Food-Stamp Crisis
Key Points:
- Per the Department of Agriculture’s preliminary data from April, about 37 million low- and no-income people in the United States are on food stamps. That’s roughly one in 10 Americans, down from one in eight last year.
- Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump has touted as one of his signature policy achievements, slashed funding to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And its cuts to SNAP—tightening eligibility requirements and limiting the amount of aid that recipients might be able to collect in the future—were the largest in the program’s history.
- Food stamps will lose $186 billion in federal funding through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. Last week, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, suggested that “it’s very likely that the number of children receiving SNAP has dropped by more than 1.5 million since July 2025,” when the OBBBA became law.
- Inflation has been rising quickly this year, in part because of the Iran war, and the assault on food stamps is now compounding an ongoing affordability crisis. If states can’t meet the federal government’s new requirements for SNAP, they may have to take on a collective $9 billion in food-stamp costs themselves—forcing local legislators to make hard choices about which kinds of social-welfare programs, and which kinds of people, should receive aid.
- In Arizona, the number of people with access to SNAP benefits has almost halved in less than a year—the biggest drop in any state. A recent New York Times report explains that the OBBBA’s cuts and updated rules have created “bureaucratic chaos” in the state, which has been exacerbated by a labyrinthian paperwork process and antiquated tech infrastructure.
- It’s hard to see who wins: not food-stamp recipients, not the states that will have their budgets upended, and not the administration, which has been trying to convince Americans ahead of the midterms that it’s responding to their affordability concerns.
To learn more about the campaign, visit UnrigOurEconomy.com or contact press@unrigoureconomy.com
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About Unrig Our Economy
Unrig Our Economy is a national campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. We know that when the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding corporations, their wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable.