Democrats rally to restore SNAP as families brace for a lean Thanksgiving
By Michael Jones
Republicans spent the shutdown – amazingly – trying to blame Democrats for families losing their SNAP and WIC benefits, pointing to their own partisan continuing resolution as proof they cared more about keeping benefits flowing than Democrats did. It was a neat bit of high-ground theater, but no one was buying it, and it fell apart under scrutiny.
Remember, Democrats didn’t force the lapse to squeeze low-income households; they did it to secure an extension of the ACA premium tax credits after Republicans refused to attach one to their CR. And the only reason SNAP was ever at risk is that the Trump administration declined to use the contingency funds Congress had already approved to prevent a disruption during a funding lapse.
Just months earlier, Republicans cut $186 billion in SNAP funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—the largest reduction in American history— by narrowing eligibility and tightening compliance. But with Thanksgiving days away and grocery prices still climbing, Democrats introduced a bill last week that would repeal those summer cuts to food assistance. While the bill is supported by over 190 House Democrats and all 47 Democratic senators plus the nearly 1,500 national, state and community-based organizations that signed a letter last week voicing support for the effort, itis unlikely to advance while Republicans control the House, Senate and presidency. Butit provides Democrats a foundation to continue raising the alarm on how these cuts compound over time—for health outcomes, local grocers and regional economies that rely on SNAP dollars in addition to families’ food budgets—as part of its ongoing push to center the cost-of-living crisis ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minn.) told me that the GOP’s SNAP cuts amount to another war on family farmers, who will lose an estimated $25 billion in direct revenue while grappling with fierce economic headwinds from the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
“It’s less food that is going to be purchased. It’s jobs that will disappear because there’s not as much food being driven to the retailers, the grocery stores, the workers who put the food on the shelves,” Craig said. “This is an entire ecosystem that, of course, starts with the food grown by family farmers and ends with feeding hungry Americans. This administration continues to demonstrate over and over and over again that, in fact, they don’t love family farmers.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, added that the administration’s attacks on the food economy predated the OBBBA. During and after the pandemic, Congress established the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) to help states, territories, and tribes purchase local foods from small- and medium-sized producers for use in food banks, schools, and child care settings.
Under the direction of Elon Musk, the USDA cancelled more than $1 billion in local-food purchase funding for schools and food banks in early 2025. Luján and a group of 31 senators demanded reversal of the cancellation, warning that the cuts would destabilize local food systems over the long haul by shrinking guaranteed markets for farmers and ranchers, weakening food banks’ supply chains and deepening chronic food insecurity in communities that rely on both.
“I don’t know that there’s enough emphasis to describe the pain that has been intentionally sent to families in every corner of America, and families that live in rural parts of the country like I do,” Luján said. “This is horrible.”
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, said her organization is bracing for significant hunger and health economic outcomes due to the SNAP cuts.
“We expect there to be an impact on the health and well-being of our nation, across the country. We also know that there is an economic impact of SNAP. For every dollar that somebody spends on SNAP, it generates up to $1.80 in economic activity,” FitzSimons told me. “So that is really important in local communities. We know how important SNAP is to support local rural grocery stores, and so we’re worried about that as well.”
Another cause for concern is the administrative enforcement of the OBBBA’s expanded work-requirement verification that went into effect on November 1.
The new SNAP work requirements require states to begin enforcing expanded rules for non-disabled adults without dependents up to age 64. While the law technically took effect upon enactment, the USDA gave states until the start of this month to update their systems and start tracking compliance with the 80-hour-per-month work, training or volunteer standard. The first benefit losses due to noncompliance could occur as early as March 2026.
In addition to the SNAP cuts, critics of the OBBBA argue it creates an unfunded mandate that requires states or local governments to carry out the program without providing federal dollars to cover the cost, which could force states to end SNAP entirely if they are not able or choose not to come up with the money needed to fill the hole left by deep federal cuts.
For millions of families, this Thanksgiving won’t feel like much of a holiday at all. And while the overall cost of the holiday’s meal has dipped for the third year in a row, grocery prices and utility costs are still running hotter than wages, and SNAP recipients are already stretching smaller benefits across bigger bills. Food banks report longer lines and thinner inventories, and even middle-income households say they’re swapping out staples or downsizing their menus. The affordability crisis has literally reshaped what ends up on the table.
COURIER recently launched a new video series with public health physician Dr. Vin Gupta, and the first episode followed people bracing for SNAP cuts in real time: families talking through what it means to stretch a month’s worth of groceries, and community leaders warning that food insecurity can spread quickly when the safety net frays. It’s definitely worth watching.
Gupta spoke with Anthony Bonner, a barber in Tennessee who relies on SNAP to feed himself and his 13-year-old son.
“Everybody, no matter if you’re rich or poor, we need to eat. So it’s just ridiculous that there’s any stigmas [around receiving SNAP],” Bonner told Gupta. “But I think the biggest stigma that we need to remove from food insecurity is that it’s a privilege. [Food] is a human right.”
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
