The One Big ‘Beautiful’ Bill’s SNAP Cuts Would Strain Food Banks Amid Rising Food Insecurity

Food banks have come out with a clear message in response: They are not equipped to handle the hunger crisis that would result from the bill’s cuts to SNAP. Earlier in 2025, the Trump administration froze or cut nearly $1 billion in federal funding that food banks rely on to serve their communities, during a period when demand had already hit record levels in many parts of the country. SNAP is the most effective and efficient way to assist food-insecure households; the largest-ever cut to SNAP would represent a huge hit to basic assistance that would take food away from millions of people in need. To prevent drastic increases in hunger for struggling families, Congress must reject the proposed cuts.

Food insecurity is on the rise

The latest available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 13.5 percent of households—18 million in total—were “food insecure” at some point in 2023. This means they were unable to acquire adequate food for one or more household members due to a lack of money or other resources. Food insecurity is at its highest rate since 2014 and is substantially higher among all households, including households with children, than it was just two years prior in 2021, when food insecurity rates were among their lowest in decades.

As Table 1 shows, this increase is not localized to any one part of the country. According to Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap” data, food insecurity has risen in all 50 states since 2021.

Food insecurity is linked to a higher risk of various negative outcomes, particularly among children. These include poorer health, lower-quality diets, more behavioral problems, and poorer educational outcomes, which can make it harder for children to achieve or maintain financial stability in adulthood. Food insecurity is also significantly more likely to affect lower-income families. Data from 2023 show that more than a third of households in or near poverty experienced food insecurity that year, compared with 7.5 percent of moderate- and higher-income households.

Expansions to basic assistance programs, including SNAP, during the COVID-19 pandemic were key in keeping food insecurity low during 2020 and 2021. But the expiration of this assistance, along with rising food prices due to supply chain shocks, resulted in increases in 2022 and 2023. Food insecurity will only continue to rise if Congress enacts the largest cuts in SNAP’s history.

Food banks cannot replace cut SNAP benefits

In response to having their benefits cut, people would be forced to either go hungry or get their food another way, such as through charitable organizations. For example, Feeding America’s network of more than 200 food banks distributes food to more than 60,000 local partners that feed those in need. Feeding America estimates that more than 50 million people received charitable food assistance in 2023 alone.

People who lose SNAP benefits would likely turn to these organizations to get their food. In 2023, 45 percent of low-income households who reported receiving free groceries through charitable assistance also received SNAP. In fact, two-thirds of food banks reported increased demand immediately following the expiration of temporary pandemic-era expansions to SNAP benefits in 2023. Demand for food assistance has remained elevated even now in response to rising costs of living.

Historic cuts to SNAP would only exacerbate this trend, since the program is so effective at delivering assistance to struggling families. Indeed, for every meal Feeding America’s network provides, SNAP provides nine. Food banks across the country are warning that cutting SNAP would create a level of need that they would be unable to fill:

• Alabama (Feeding Alabama): “If $230 billion are cut from the SNAP program, there is no back up plan. The pantries that are already bending under the strain have no capacity left to meet such a massive increase in need.”
• Alaska (Food Bank of Alaska): “Food pantries are already at capacity. When SNAP is slashed, we see it in real time: longer lines, higher demand, and increased strain on volunteers and donated food supplies. We can’t fill the gap. No food bank can.”
• Arizona (United Food Bank): “Arizona food banks cannot replace the scale of meals provided by the SNAP program. While we are certainly blessed to provide food to hundreds of thousands of Arizonans each month, we are simply not equipped to handle the giant increase in demand that would result from reduced access to SNAP.”
• California (California Association of Food Banks): “California food banks are already stretched thin, serving more than 6 million people each month. There is no way that food banks can make up for the amount of food households would lose as a result of these cuts to SNAP.”
• Iowa (Food Bank of Iowa): “This is a massive, complicated, messy bill to understand but it will cut out 9.5 billion meals a year for people facing food insecurity. If you look at all 200 Feeding America food banks, and all the partners, the pantries and agencies we support across the entire country, last year we distributed 6 billion meals. So how in the world could the charitable food system absorb 9.5 billion more meals a year?”
• Kansas (Harvesters Community Food Network): “With any reduction in SNAP, we just don’t have the capacity to make up that gap. The charitable food system does not have the capacity to make up that gap.”
• Kentucky (God’s Pantry Food Bank): “We’re going to see more people that are hungry, seeking more food from a food bank than we’ve ever seen before. The risk is that it will be more households, more individuals, more seniors, more veterans, more kids that we simply will not be able to accommodate.”
• Louisiana (The Food Bank of Central Louisiana): “At the Food Bank of Central Louisiana we are already operating at full capacity alongside our network of food pantries, community kitchens and faith-based partners. We need strong federal programs, food banks, community partners, all working together to solve the hunger crisis. Now is the time to come together to preserve and strengthen SNAP and Medicaid.”
• Maine (Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine): “Community pantries and other hunger-ending groups are operating with less resources, and they are not in a position to absorb the impact of cuts to SNAP and other federal programs. We are already running to keep up with today’s increased need. We do not have resources to fill the gap that would be created by this bill.”
• Missouri (Harvesters Community Food Network): “The charitable food system cannot make up for that reduction. And so that’s our concern, is that our neighbors that are experiencing food insecurity, that are receiving benefits through this program will receive less.”
• Nebraska (Together Omaha): “[W]e could be expected to serve double or triple the people with the exact same resources we have now, or even less. I think that’s going to be really difficult for us to pull off.”
• New Jersey (New Jersey’s five food banks): “With nearly 1.1 million New Jerseyans facing hunger, food banks – which are already at record levels of service – won’t be able to fill the gaps these cuts will create. We urge the Senate to reject these cuts, and all New Jersey residents to continue advocating to their members of Congress to oppose them.”
• North Carolina (Food Bank of the Albemarle): “If there were to be about a 10% cut to SNAP the food bank would have to provide upwards of 13 and a half million meals a year. For our food bank that’s not sustainable, it’s not possible.”
• Ohio (Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio): “Food banks can’t make up the difference, philanthropy can’t make up the difference — there’s been too many cuts to federal grants, too many cuts to so many different things that without SNAP … there just isn’t anything else. Our real fear is that people just don’t eat.”
• Pennsylvania (Westmoreland Food Bank): “We are not equipped to absorb the massive demand that would result from reduced access to federal nutrition programs. Food banks cannot replace the scale, the reach and the stability of the SNAP program.”
• South Dakota (Feeding South Dakota): “SNAP benefits get people out of food lines. So, it’s either they’re in the food bank line or they’re in the grocery store.”
• Texas (Houston Food Bank): “[A 10 percent cut to SNAP is] financially the equivalent of wiping out every food bank in the U.S. … If the general public thinks that we can make up the difference, that’s absolutely not true.”
• West Virginia (Facing Hunger Food Bank): “SNAP is a big part of the safety net for folks who are food insecure. For every dollar of food that we can provide, which we say provides a meal, SNAP dollars provide like 12 meals.”

To make matters worse, funding for food banks has taken a drastic hit in recent months. In March, the Trump administration terminated fiscal year 2025 funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) Cooperative Agreement program, which awarded states and Tribes money to purchase food from local farmers to distribute to hungry families through charitable organizations. Up to $471.5 million had been made available for 2025, and Figure 2 maps the cuts by state.

The full dataset of canceled LFPA awards is available for download here.

Conclusion

Rising food insecurity, combined with elevated demand for charitable assistance and cuts to food bank funding, has exposed worrisome cracks in the food system. Projected increases in food prices as a result of the Trump administration’s tariffs could cause those cracks to spread further. Enacting the largest-ever cut to SNAP on top of this would cause hunger to spike to levels that simply could not be met by charitable giving.

The author would like to thank Will Ragland, Lily Roberts, Emily Gee, Mimla Wardak, Natalie Baker, Sophie Cohen, Steve Bonitatibus, Bill Rapp, Chester Hawkins, and Audrey Juarez for their valuable contributions and feedback.