Budget cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and food banks will put more strain on Virginia organizations already struggling to meet increased need and costs, food bank representatives say. 

President Donald Trump signed the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act that will cut an estimated $187 billion from SNAP and change eligibility requirements. Critics say this will offset tax relief for the wealthy, while the administration says it is to motivate the program to run more efficiently. 

Virginia will spend more to provide 874,000 people with SNAP benefits. The funding cuts are determined by three factors, such as a state’s error rate, federal administrative support and new SNAP work requirements, according to the Council of State Governments Midwest. 

The new cost-share requirements could put an additional expense of about $352 million on Virginia’s biennial budget, according to earlier estimates from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

Factors in funding cuts 

A state’s error rate includes overpayment or underpayment to SNAP recipients. Virginia’s recent error rate is 11.5%. 

Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive directive to lower the state’s error rate. If it is not reduced, the state will have to cover 15% of cost share for SNAP. 

Major impacts are set to take place on Oct. 1, 2026, when the bill goes into effect in the state, according to the Virginia Department of Social Services. 

The state will be responsible for 75% of the administrative cost while the government is responsible for 25%. Previously, the administrative cost share was 50% for the state and federal governments. 

There are also new eligibility and work requirements for SNAP recipients, who must recertify each year: 

Working age requirements for adults were extended to 65; it was previously 55. 

Parents with children 14 and older are now required to work; they have been generally exempt. 

Veterans, individuals facing homelessness and some individuals in foster care are required to work. 

Recipients must either train, volunteer or work a minimum of 80 hours a month to qualify. 

An estimated 2.4 million people will not qualify for SNAP in a typical month because of these new provisions, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The bill’s tax cuts run through 2034. 

Families with children make up 67% of Virginia’s SNAP recipients as of 2024, according to data by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. More than 80% of the families who receive SNAP have been employed in the past year. 

The bill also puts a restriction on the Thrifty Food Plan developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The plan accounts for food price inflation to determine how much SNAP benefits families should receive. 

The price of food increased by 2.9% from July 2024 to July 2025, according to the USDA. 

Those increased costs have put almost half of the state’s residents in debt, according to a poll by No Kid Hungry Virginia. 

The USDA also slashed an estimated $1 billion in funds for food banks and schools, separate from the bill, according to CBS News. 

Food banks see increased need 

Mary Brown-Akherraz, 63, is on a fixed income and uses the pantry at Ephesus Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Richmond. She stopped working 17 years ago due to back and hip issues and is in treatment for breast cancer. She is worried by an inconsistency of SNAP benefits. 

“It went from $200 down to $79, then it went up to $104, then it went down,” Brown- Akherraz said. “I don’t get it, every time I recertify, it's something different.” 

Brown-Akherraz cannot afford increased rent and the cost of eating healthy. Now, she worries about qualifying for SNAP in the future. 

“If it wasn’t a place like this, half of us wouldn’t even survive,” Brown-Akherraz said. 

The pantry has seen an increased demand for food assistance, according to Edwayne Robinson, director of community services at the church. The pantry serves an older adult population worried about Social Security and SNAP benefits decreasing or being cut completely, according to Robinson. 

Eddie Oliver is executive director of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks, a collaborative organization between the seven regional food banks and over 1,100 agency partners. SNAP eligibility changes add administrative burdens and make filing timely paperwork more challenging, Oliver said. 

“It often presents an obstacle for working families who need the assistance,” he said. “Many of the SNAP beneficiaries who can work do work, and the vast majority of people who benefit from the program are children, seniors or disabled.” 

Food insecurity in rural areas 

Over 1 million Virginians for the first time in history are food insecure. Eight in 10 of the localities with the highest rates of food insecurity are in rural areas, Oliver said. 

Rural communities are bracing for the impact of the federal cuts, said Karen Ratzlaff, chief philanthropy officer of Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which provides food for people in 25 counties and eight cities across western and central Virginia. 

The food bank will receive a couple of million pounds less in food from the federal government this fiscal year. A quarter of the food it distributes comes from the government. A large portion also comes from manufacturers and growers, Ratzlaff said. 

Blue Ridge has experienced a 16% increase in the amount of people served in the past year, Ratzlaff said. The demand is currently 45% higher than at the height of the pandemic. The food bank has financial reserves it is budgeting to brace for these impacts. 

“But increasingly we are buying more and more food and, this last year, we purchased about $5 million worth of food for distribution,” Ratzlaff said.