President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” was the legislation heard round the world when signed into law on July 4 of this year.
The massive spending and tax bill makes several of the president’s 2017 tax cuts permanent, adds provisions for no tax on tips and overtime and increases spending on immigration enforcement and the military.
But to help pay for those tax cuts and increased spending, the legislation made extraordinary changes to the Medicaid program, which provides health coverage to 70 million Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which assists 42 million Americans in food access nationwide.
“It will cost people their healthcare and their food. 37,000 Delawareans will lose access to help making sure they're not hungry. It's going to affect millions of people nationwide, but it's important to focus on what’s it mean for us here in Delaware,” U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) said at a press conference just days after the bill was signed into law in July.
The bill creates new administrative requirements and conditions on eligibility, including work requirements, for people seeking to enroll in or maintain Medicaid coverage.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates roughly 16 million people could lose their health insurance coverage by 2034 due to the Big, Beautiful Bill’s provisions, combined with baseline projections.
While the bulk of Medicaid changes are coming at the end of 2026, Delaware’s lone Congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-Del.) warns the 124,000 Delawareans receiving SNAP benefits could see cuts even sooner.
SNAP is a food supplemental program for low-income families. Funds are passed onto an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which can be used at local grocery stores.
Previously, the federal government paid for 50% of SNAP administrative costs. Under the Big, Beautiful Bill, that cost share will drop to 25% beginning in October 2026, which Congresswoman McBride worries could cripple Delaware’s budget.
“This bill will saddle our state with tens of millions of dollars in new costs, just to maintain current food assistance. That is an unfunded mandate, plain and simple. That is a mandate that no state, alongside the cuts to Medicaid and other critical programs across the federal government, that no state can single handedly, or even jointly make up for without the support of the federal government,” she said.
Delaware Division of Social Services Director Tom Hall says that change will result in $16.5 million in additional spending for the First State.
“The state’s going to have to work to identify where those funds are going to come from,” Hall said.
SNAP benefit requirements are set by federal law, which means lowering the amount of food assistance offered to eligible individuals to make up for this additional cost isn’t a possibility.
But this influx in administrative cost is only the beginning when it comes to states picking up more of the SNAP tab.
“This bill will saddle our state with tens of millions of dollars in new costs, just to maintain current food assistance. That is an unfunded mandate, plain and simple."Congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-Delaware)
While states have always paid a portion of administrative costs, the federal government has historically covered the entirety of the benefits portion, amounting to nearly $100 billion last fiscal year. This equates to roughly $187 per SNAP participant per month.
But that is set to change. Beginning in October 2027, states could pay anywhere from 5% to 15% of benefit costs if their payment error rate is at or over 6%.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 8 states fell below the 6% error rate last year and Delaware’s payment error rate last fiscal year was 12.37%
So what is the SNAP error rate? Hall explains it’s a measure of administrative accuracy.
“The rate reflects where benefits were overpaid or underpaid due to eligibility determination errors. Sometimes people think this is a result of fraud. It is not. It's more just about the administrative process that's used to determine the benefits.”
While Delaware has one of the highest error rates in the country, it is only half of the highest reported rate, which belongs to Alaska at 24.66%
This prompted U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) to tack an amendment onto the Big, Beautiful Bill allowing states with a payment error rate of 13.34% or higher to delay paying for a portion of SNAP benefits for an additional two years.
Delaware falls just one percentage below that threshold.
Hall laughed when asked sarcastically if it would be easier for Delaware to simply increase its error rate by 1% instead of cutting it in half, assuring that the Delaware Division of Social Services isn’t planning to take that route.
Instead, he seems optimistic about reducing the error rate before the October 2027 deadline.
“We are working diligently to lower our error rate. We cut it in half already from where we were in 2023, so our expectation is that we're going to be able to lower the rate more between now and the end of the next federal fiscal year, and so the likelihood is we'll be using the error rate that's calculated for federal year 2026 as our baseline year,” Hall said.
Some lawmakers and analysts point out the hypocrisy in asking states to lower their payment error rate while simultaneously cutting administrative funding, particularly when high error rates can in part be attributed to staff shortages and burnout.
Hall says there’s no doubt the changes make things difficult, but he is determined to work through the new requirements and make sure benefits are administered in a timely and accurate manner.
“We already have processes in place to lower the error rates, but we're going to be ramping up even more to do more real time, expanded quality control efforts to catch errors as they occur and before they're put into a case,” he explained.
Hall says his office will also work on client education to ensure applicants understand what documents are needed to accurately determine their eligibility.
This relates to a third major change in SNAP. Starting next month, in October 2025, new federal work requirements go into place in order for individuals to qualify for food assistance.
Previously, adult SNAP recipients had to work until age 54 to qualify, unless they were a parent with dependents. Now the working age to stay in the program has been raised to 64 and only parents with children younger than 14 are exempt from the requirement.
Hall expects the change to impact 12,000 Delawareans currently receiving SNAP benefits and likely result in a multitude of individuals falling off the program.
“It's absolutely a challenge for some folks. I mean, there is no doubt about that. Are there jobs available to them based on the skills that they have in the area they live? That's a concern. This bill doesn't take that into consideration at all, and actually changes the ability to even request waivers in some cases. People will definitely leave the program as a result of this change.”
Individuals will only get three months of benefits without complying, meaning those who do not meet the new requirements will lose benefits by Jan. 1, 2026.
Hall says ensuring participants maintain SNAP eligibility will largely come down to education and making sure participants are aware of the new changes.
The Food Bank of Delaware plays a large role in this type of application assistance helping current and interested participants provide the right documentation to receive benefits.
“It’s just complicated. There's a lot of paperwork. It's sometimes really hard to understand. We have people that don't have the ability to comprehend and read the application. We have language barriers. And our team actually sits with people and walks them through that [process]. When they leave that meeting with our staff person, they actually have everything they need to apply,” said Food Bank of Delaware President and CEO Cathy Kanefsky.
She points out while the SNAP Outreach Program will persist, the Big, Beautiful Bill immediately cut funding for the SNAP Education Program.
The SNAP Education funding was used to help existing participants learn how to maximize their benefits and create nutritious meals. While Kanefsky is thoroughly disappointed with the program's cut, her focus has shifted to ensuring SNAP participants can fill out the proper paperwork to maintain their access to food.
“I can't imagine if I'm looking at something that I just don't understand, and it looks too hard, and it is what's standing between me and being able to get a benefit that's going to help me feed my family? It's just, it's hard, it's sad and it's devastating,” Kanefsky said.
The Big, Beautiful Bill also made SNAP eligibility changes for non-U.S. citizens. Previously, immigrants granted official humanitarian protections were guaranteed access to benefits, but now, refugees, asylees and trafficking survivors will lose eligibility.
The only exceptions are for those granted the status of Cuban and Haitian entrants or Compacts of Free Association migrants. While the changes were made immediately with the bill’s signing, Hall says states are waiting for guidance from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service on how to implement the provision.
While Delaware SNAP administrators and the Food Bank work to ensure participants don’t lose benefits before January, the state is also beginning to consider serious budget changes to accommodate for the increased costs.
Gov. Matt Meyer is waiting on Delaware’s budget advisory committee, known as the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Committee (DEFAC), to present updated economic figures in October, which will help determine the true fiscal health of the state.
We have a $7 billion budget, so when tens of millions of dollars goes away, it's not good news. You're talking about 1, 2, 3%. We think we can find the resources to continue, maybe not all, but many of these programs,”
But previous projections have not been promising. Even after potentially dipping into its reserves, Delaware is currently expected to enter a deficit by fiscal year 2028.
"We have a $7 billion budget, so when tens of millions of dollars goes away, it's not good news. You're talking about 1, 2, 3%. We think we can find the resources to continue, maybe not all, but many of these programs.”Gov. Matt Meyer (D)
The combination of recent federal funding cuts, the drying up of historic federal investments by past presidential administrations and Delaware’s recent history of letting its spending far outpace its revenue growth put the state in a precarious financial situation.
Despite recent dismal projections, Meyer appears confident the state will be able to cover a bulk of the program cuts.
“Right now we're looking at an overall impact of tens of millions of dollars. We have a $7 billion budget, so when tens of millions of dollars goes away, it's not good news. You're talking about 1, 2, 3%. We think we can find the resources to continue, maybe not all, but many of these programs,” Gov. Meyer said.
The governor also sees the changes as a chance to create more efficiency within the state’s SNAP program and potentially save some money along the way.
“I do believe in some cases, like in our SNAP program here in Delaware, there are inefficiencies that we need to work on and we need to make sure we're using the latest, greatest technologies. And maybe because federal rules in the past haven't been structured around it, we haven't really put those issues under a magnifying glass and fix them,” he said. “So we're also trying to fix some of these inefficiencies that we think is going to generate millions of dollars of savings for Delawareans.”
While there is an opportunity to improve program efficiencies, Sen. Coons worries the impacts could extend beyond current projections, particularly in a small state like Delaware.
“This is a program, as we heard today, where the folks who participate on it often come on and off. They come into benefiting from the program because they've been laid off, they've been widowed, they've lost their home. So a majority of SNAP beneficiaries are not on it for a very long period,” explained Sen. Coons. “So when I say 37,000 people are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits, that's actually going to ripple through probably 100,000 people over the course of two years. That's 10% of our state. If 10% of our state has a significant increase in hunger, and we've got a hungrier, poorer, less healthy community as a whole, that impacts everybody.”
The true impacts of the SNAP program changes are yet to be seen, but Delaware will undoubtedly be faced with tough financial decisions in the months ahead.
