Abstract

Congress is considering ways to reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $230 billion over 10 years. Reforms will likely include one or more of the following cost-saving elements: reducing the maximum SNAP benefit, reducing deductions, expanding work requirements, and ending broad-based categorical eligibility. I analyze each of these reforms, focusing on the consequences for the SNAP benefit schedule, targeting of benefits to low-income households, and work incentives.

Introduction

Toward the goal of passing a reconciliation bill in the 119th United States Congress, the House of Representatives agreed on February 25, 2025, to a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2025.¹ The resolution instructed individual House committees to change the budgetary levels for areas under their jurisdiction. In particular, it instructed the Committee on Agriculture to reduce the deficit by at least $230 billion between 2025 and 2034. Analysts expect budgetary reductions to occur largely in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (Bergh 2025).

SNAP is a means-tested nutrition assistance program that provides benefits to recipients via electronic benefit transfer cards. A household of three receives a maximum monthly SNAP benefit of $768 in FY2025, which eventually begins to phase out with additional income after certain income deductions have been exhausted. A household can qualify for SNAP if its gross income is less than 130 percent of the federal poverty line (equal to about $34,000 annually for a household of three), although in many states, even higher-income households can qualify under broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE). BBCE effectively increases the income eligibility threshold to as much as 200 percent of the poverty line and eliminates the asset test.

In FY2024, SNAP benefits totaled $94 billion (FNS 2025b). If the Agriculture Committee achieves all its assigned $230 billion budgetary reductions through changes in SNAP benefits, that would require an average annual reduction in benefits of $23 billion, or about 25 percent of current SNAP benefits.

I analyze four frequently discussed ways to reduce SNAP spending: (1) reducing the maximum SNAP benefit, (2) reducing income deductions when calculating a household’s benefit, (3) expanding work requirements, and (4) ending BBCE. For each of these reforms, I analyze the effect on the SNAP benefit schedule, targeting of benefits to lower-income households, and work incentives. I focus on extensive-margin work incentives (which influence the decision to participate in work), given research suggesting stronger responses on the extensive than the intensive margin (the decision to work additional hours).²

1. Establishing the Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2025 and Setting Forth the Appropriate Budgetary Levels for Fiscal Years 2026 Through 2034, H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119th Cong. (2025).
2. See, for example, Nichols and Rothstein (2016).