Passed and signed into law last Thursday and Friday, the Republican-majority Congress’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” makes major changes to federal food assistance, including by eventually shifting extensive costs onto states.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which assists low-income families, is almost entirely federally funded and has been that way for decades. States only share administrative costs.
But SNAP will undergo structural change in 2028 to account for federal tax cuts.
Under Republican President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill, Ohio would have to absorb about 10% of the benefit costs for its own SNAP program, likely totaling more than $315 million, according to analysis from the left-lean think tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In 2024, Ohio had an error rate of 9%, which is the measure of its eligibility and benefit determinations. Any state with an error rate higher than 6% will have to shoulder anywhere from 5% to 15% of benefit costs under the bill, according to the CBPP. Congress also extended work requirements, affecting millions.
House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said he believes SNAP reforms are overdue but that Ohio will need to find some way to fill those holes.
“We have to have it,” Huffman told the Statehouse News Bureau in June. “There’s a lot of other programs, food banks, local things. In Lima, or in Allen County, you could look and there’s at least one free dinner every weekend at a church. Now, that is not going to solve all the health problems or food problems for everybody ... so SNAP has to exist.”
Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) was not so confident in the idea of her colleagues across the aisle pouring supplemental funding into the program.
“If and when the feds pass a bill that inevitably leads to multi-billion-dollar holes in our budget, what they’re going to say is that those are federal programs, and if the feds don’t want to pay for them, it’s not our job to fund them,” Sweeney said.
About 1.5 million Ohioans received SNAP benefits in May 2025, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Though Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton Counties lead the list by sheer numbers, rural southeast Ohio saw higher percentages.
Ohio’s two U.S. senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, voted for the budget bill, along with Ohio's 10 GOP congressmen.
