Like every Massachusetts resident who gets government help paying for food, Merideth Lively has to get recertified every six months by the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance.
But when Lively reached out to renew her SNAP benefits in February, they couldn’t reach their usual DTA caseworker.
“Her supervisor had to do the interview, and then there were a couple pieces of information that that person missed or got wrong,” Lively said.
That set off a bureaucratic nightmare that resulted in her food assistance being terminated.
“It was difficult to find a human staff to help me,” Lively said. It took two months of repeated phone calls, a malfunctioning app and multiple hours-long visits to DTA office before SNAP benefits were restored, they said.
“It was like a process that should have been totally normal and simple. I never should have been cut off,” Lively said.
Over 150,000 people have lost SNAP coverage in the last year, mostly due to new federal eligibility requirements under President Donald Trump. Lively’s experience with DTA has become common as the department has struggled to keep up with a surge in calls. In March alone, the department was unable to answer more than half of all calls, according to state data.
In response, DTA workers say they’re overwhelmed by the growing numbers of people facing food insecurity and recipients struggling to navigate new federal eligibility rules. Total calls to DTA went up nearly a third from the same time last year.
To Lively, it was clear the department was short-staffed.
“It was just apparent to me that everybody’s caseload must be just, like, so much,” they said. “I can tell when the staff are really working hard at their job. And they’re just not able to handle the amount of what’s happening.”
That staffing shortage is being acutely felt as DTA struggles to implement SNAP eligibility requirements that the Trump administration pushed for in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under the new eligibility rules, which started to phase in last November, SNAP recipients must work at least 20 hours a week unless they meet certain exemptions. DTA staff say they’re swamped by the demands of verifying recipients’ work status, helping them with paperwork required to prove they’re exempt, and managing frantic calls and visits from those who have lost benefits.
That’s led DTA staff to call on state lawmakers for more funding to hire hundreds of additional workers to help keep up with demand.
“Currently, we have a shortage of staff, and we definitely need at least 200 more staff,” said Antionette Hughes, a supervisor at DTA who serves as president for the department’s chapter for Local 509.
The DTA does have 44 new hires coming on at the beginning of July, she said. But more are needed to serve the population that’s calling and showing up every day, Hughes maintains.
“We’re not able to service the clients like we should be, because we’re in such demand,” she said. “And it’s very difficult to do an interview with a client knowing that there are four more right behind you, waiting.”
Hughes pointed to a number of reasons that people have difficulty meeting new work requirements to get SNAP. But there are several exemptions that would let people get access to benefits anyway.
“We have a lot of clients that are in rural areas and transportation is limited. Some are caring for a family member. And see, these are exemptions that they can have, that we need to educate them with,” she said. “There are some that are homeless. They’re surfing from couch to couch, so they’re not able to secure employment.”
It takes DTA employees time to help those people navigate the system and secure exemptions where they can, she said.
A spokesperson for the department said the DTA is hiring more caseworkers, training staff and using new technology to help clients navigate enrollment.
“Because of policies passed by President Trump and Congress, millions of people across the country, including thousands in Massachusetts, are being kicked off SNAP,” the DTA spokesperson wrote. “DTA is focused on doing everything we can to help Massachusetts residents … stay on SNAP so that they don’t go hungry.”
The federal SNAP restrictions come as state residents were already facing record-high levels of hunger. A report from the Greater Boston Food Bank released last month said an estimated 40% of Massachusetts households experienced food insecurity in 2025 — meaning that at some point, they either couldn’t afford enough food or worried about where their next meal would come from.
Anti-hunger advocates agree that DTA is understaffed and are also pushing for the state to address the problem.
“SNAP is the most effective tool that we have in fighting hunger,” said Erin McAleer, president and CEO of the anti-hunger advocacy group Project Bread. “We really need to do a better job of making sure people are connected to this program.”
In Massachusetts, the number of people receiving SNAP benefits has dropped by about 155,000 in the 12 months prior to this March, including about 54,000 children, according to state data. Most of that is likely due to the new federal restrictions, McAleer said.
“What the One Big Beautiful Bill did was also shift a lot of costs onto the state in a lot of areas, including in this one,” McAleer said. “And so legislators are having to make difficult decisions with their budget. But what we’re really pushing is that this absolutely has to be a top priority. You know, we can’t have people who are struggling to put food on the table and eligible for this program, losing access to it simply because they can’t get through.”
One legislative effort to secure additional funding for the department failed last week. As the legislature works to finalize its budget for the coming fiscal year, state Sen. Robyn Kennedy — a Worcester Democrat — introduced an amendment to support the department.
“My amendment that I filed would have allowed DTA to hire 60 additional positions to continue to work towards that [goal of] 200,” Kennedy said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to include that in this budget. But working closely with the chair of Ways and Means, we’re going to continue to push so that through the course of [the next fiscal year], DTA can continue to get the funding that they need to continue that hiring.”
There’s another reason to make sure DTA has enough staff, Kennedy said. Clerical mistakes in applications push up a metric called the “payment error rate.” And although those errors don’t necessarily mean people are improperly receiving benefits, the Trump administration plans to use that metric as a justification to cut SNAP payments.
“This federal administration is taking a more punitive approach and they’re going to start withholding funding from states who have a high ‘payment error rate,’” Kennedy said. “So we need to make sure that DTA has staff that can be responding to our constituents so that we keep that payment error rate low.”
If not, she said, there could be less SNAP money available for Massachusetts households.
