More than a million Massachusetts residents who rely on government assistance to buy food are likely to lose those benefits at the beginning of November.
Anti-hunger advocates are worried about the compounding effects from the federal government shutdown, stricter eligibility requirements and broader funding cuts by the Trump administration. Erin McAleer, president and CEO of the nonprofit Project Bread, said these changes will make already high rates of food insecurity even worse.
“I would absolutely call it a perfect storm,” McAleer said.
Here are some of the changes that advocates say are likely to create a crisis of food insecurity in Massachusetts, and around the country.
The federal shutdown
Without a Congress-approved spending bill, funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program runs out on Nov. 1. A million people in Massachusetts will be among the roughly 42 million Americans to lose access.
Massachusetts legislative leaders say the state can’t fund SNAP on its own. Gov. Maura Healey said the federal government sent $240 million each month to the state’s SNAP recipients, and that even though Massachusetts has roughly $8 billion in a “rainy day fund,” the state can’t afford to make up the missing money.
“There’s no way that this state or any state can begin to backfill or cover this,” she said on Monday, urging the federal government to use contingency funds to keep the program running during the shutdown.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP, announced last week that it would not take that step.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell sued the Trump administration Tuesday for cutting off access to the benefits, along with nearly two dozen other states. The attorneys general claim withholding the benefits is illegal, especially when the department has the funds to sustain at least some of November’s benefits, and are asking a judge to compel the government to make that funding available.
Another consequence of the shutdown is the impact on some 25,000 people in Massachusetts who work for the federal government. Many of them have been furloughed or working without pay since Oct. 1, and without income, may join the ranks of residents who are food insecure.
“These are folks that aren’t used to going to food pantries,” said Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank, which supplies food to 600 organizations in 190 Massachusetts communities. “We know we’re going to need additional funds in order to provide the food.”
Expanded work requirements for SNAP recipients
The state says an additional 99,000 residents will face new work requirements to qualify for the food assistance program.
SNAP already had work requirements in place, but the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made a couple changes to those rules. That included limiting who is exempt from the work requirement and ordering recipients to report information about their work status.
Starting on Nov. 1, exemptions will no longer be given to SNAP recipients aged 55 to 64, parents of school age children, veterans and other groups. Those who do not provide proof about their work status will be limited to three months of benefits. McAleer said these changes are going to raise food insecurity among older people who can’t find jobs and single parents who can’t make enough money to cover childcare costs.
“It’s going to just make it more challenging and a lot of people are going to fall through the cracks,” McAleer said.
New limits to immigrants’ eligibility
Also on Nov. 1, thousands of immigrants will lose SNAP benefits due to changes in eligibility requirements. About 9,500 people who are living in the country legally will stop receiving benefits under the new limitations on eligibility, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance.
“SNAP has always been restrictive based on immigrant status,” McAleer said. “But legally present immigrants who had been in the United States for five years and people with refugee or [asylum] status were eligible for SNAP.”
That, she explained, is no longer the case.
“They’ve been doing all of what they’re supposed to be doing as far as immigration paperwork and status and complying,” McAleer said. “And they are not making enough money to get by. And now this program that’s been helping them afford food while they’ve … gone through the immigration system, they also can’t rely on it. So it’s going to be very catastrophic for those groups.”
Cuts to food banks
The shutdown and new eligibility requirements coincide with broader federal cuts that have reduced the amount of food going to food banks.
In the spring, the Trump administration cut $500 million worth of food deliveries to food banks through the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program.
Catherine D’Amato said, for the Greater Boston Food Bank, that cut resulted in losing about $4 million worth of food that they distribute to food pantries at the 600 organizations they serve.
“It’s a very challenging time because we already had to go out and raise 4 million more dollars to make that up,” D’Amato said. “And now we are facing the fact that there will be people without benefits, whether that be the federal shutdown, our current administration keeping folks furloughed, or new policies set forth in the Big Beautiful Bill.”
And starting in November, she said, those people are at risk of going hungry.
Undocumented impact
Beyond the service cuts, anti-hunger advocates are concerned about the loss of key information.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture used to conduct an annual survey to assess food insecurity rates in states and nationwide. Last month, the department announced it was ending the Household Food Security Report.
McAleer said during the pandemic, that survey was conducted on a monthly basis because need was so high. She said that information was helpful in determining how to help people in need.
“As you’re talking about all of these things that are being cut, we are actually not going to know the true harm of them because the very source of data to document it is being eliminated as well,” she said. “So the Trump administration, and with Congress’ support, is really going after a whole-scale attack to get rid of all of these programs, and then I think saying 'food insecurity doesn’t exist anymore’ — because there’s no data to back up that it does.”
