Sponsors (3)
Revises SNAP to add employment/marriage promotion, narrows "food," tightens work requirements and hours rules, defines federal benefits/resource units, and mandates a USDA report.
Official title: To help individuals receiving assistance under the supplemental nutrition assistance program in obtaining self-sufficiency, to provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Josh Brecheen · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill strengthens poverty measurement and SNAP accountability—which could improve targeting and research—while imposing greater data sharing, compliance, and state funding burdens and tightening SNAP rules in ways that risk increased benefit loss, privacy concerns, and reduced access for vulnerable households.
Low-income people and policymakers will get substantially better measures of poverty and income (counting 40+ federal benefits, a PCE-based alternative poverty measure, standardized valuation of noncash benefits, and yearly comparative tables), improving transparency and the evidence base for programs and research.
SNAP administration and accountability will improve because the Secretary must report detailed, state-level five-year outcomes quickly, which can inform state decisions and help target employment/self-sufficiency supports.
Some low-income families (married couples with children over 6) may face a lower combined work-preparation burden because spouses' combined hours are capped at the single head-of-household requirement.
Many SNAP recipients and other low-income people face a higher risk of benefit loss and increased food insecurity because the bill narrows the statutory definition of allowable 'food', expands work and cooperation requirements, tightens fraud rules, and allows automatic EBT suspensions for unauthorized use.
States and taxpayers will likely face higher ongoing administrative costs and funding pressures (new data-sharing and processing burdens, recurring state reporting, and rising state matching for SNAP admin from 10% to 50%), which could strain state budgets or reduce program capacity.
Transmitting sensitive individual-level tax and program data between agencies raises privacy and misuse risks, while severe criminal penalties for unlawful access (large fines and felony exposure) may deter legitimate data use or create liability concerns for agency staff.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Changes SNAP law and related poverty measurement rules to emphasize employment, marriage promotion, and self-sufficiency; narrows what counts as "food" under SNAP; tightens and revises work requirements and hours calculations (including a combined-hours cap for married couples with children); and creates detailed statutory definitions for "Federal benefit," "resource unit," and income categories to improve Census data verification. The bill also requires USDA to report to Congress within one year using recent years of data on SNAP outcomes.