SNAP benefits not covering the cost of a modestly priced meal, thanks to One Big Beautiful Bill

The nation’s main food assistance program falls short of the cost of a moderately priced meal in 99% of the counties across the country.

That is according to the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that analyzes social and economic issues affecting the United States.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, helped 42 million Americans buy food for themselves and their families during 2025, the latest year for which statistics are available. But out of 3,144 counties in the country, SNAP only provided enough money to cover the cost of meals in 27 of them.

Conditions are likely to be worse in 2026, given that the cost of food has gone up 2.5% year over year, according to the USDA, and because of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, the cost of fuel has risen dramatically, further eroding families’ spending power. The Center for American Progress, a public policy research organization, says the war has cost Americans $2,000 per household. 

The Urban Institute found that the average meal cost was 25% higher than the average maximum SNAP benefit, creating a monthly shortfall of almost $67 per person, and that in 75% of counties nationwide, meal prices were more than 50 cents higher than the SNAP benefit. In Pulaski County, the cost of a modestly priced meal is 22% higher than the SNAP benefit.

The deficit was higher in several urban areas where the cost of meals was 80% higher than the SNAP benefits.

The Urban Institute noted that in 2024, 14.4% of Americans were food insecure, “just below the rate experienced at the height of the Great Recession,” when food insecurity hit 16.6%. Arkansas was determined to be the most food insecure state in the country in 2022, 2023 and 2024, after which the United States Department of Agriculture stopped releasing the list. In 2024, 19.4% of Arkansans were food insecure, although the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in a report released in February of this year, put the figure at closer to 30%.

The Thrifty Food Plan, the USDA’s official standard for the cost of a healthy meal, was reevaluated in 2021 under the Biden administration, which poured money into the program. But in 2025, Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, ushering in the largest ever cutbacks to the program. The cuts, as predicted by the Urban Institute in 2025, have widened the gap between what the benefit offers and what food actually costs. 

“[The Big Beautiful Bill] limits SNAP’s ability to bridge the pervasive gap between the price of a moderately priced meal and SNAP benefits by requiring that updates to the Thrifty Food Plan be cost neutral,” stated the Urban Institute. “Given that the Thrifty Food Plan is the primary mechanism used to raise SNAP benefits, enforcing cost neutrality will make it harder to improve benefit adequacy in the future.”

 To read the full report from the Urban Institute, click here.