The federal government is currently working on a budget agreement that would have devastating impacts for Arkansas. The budget resolution intends to cut $230 billion from Agricultural programs over the next 10 years, most likely from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). SNAP is one of the most effective government programs that not only provides food assistance to low-income households but also boosts local economies.

One proposal to make this reduction in SNAP happen – and help pay for tax cuts for some of the richest businesses and individuals – is to require states to cover a percentage of SNAP benefit costs. Currently the federal government pays the full cost of SNAP food benefits while states pay around half of the administrative costs to run the program.

Arkansas is already in a hunger crisis that has been exacerbated by higher prices at the grocery store. AACF’s recent report, “State SNAP Policies are Failing Arkansas’s Kids and Families,” highlights the precarious position many of Arkansas’s kids and families are in because of the intersection of high poverty and high food insecurity. “The United States Department of Agriculture ranks Arkansas as the state in which food insecurity is the highest, with a rate of 18.9% in 2023, compared to 13.5% nationally.” Worse for our state is that food insecurity among children is much higher. For 2023, Feeding America reports that 25% of children, up from 19% in 2021, were food insecure. That means that in 2023, nearly 570,000 Arkansans — more than 168,000 of whom were children — lacked sufficient food.

However, Arkansas has steadily continued to reduce the number of people receiving food assistance during the past decade. As an example, in 2023 our poverty rate increased to 15.7%, when more than 60,000 Arkansans lost food benefits.

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows how devastating a requirement for states to pay for food benefits would be in Arkansas. For FY 2026 alone, it is estimated that just a 5% cost share would result in a bill to Arkansas of around $27 million dollars for SNAP food benefits. A 10% cost share would be around a $55 million dollar cost to the state, and a 25% would be approximately $137 million dollars. This is money that Arkansas’s state budget doesn’t have after years of tax cuts. For the next eight years governed by this budget (2026 – 2034), the expected costs for Arkansas could range from $261 million (5%) to $1.3 billion dollars (25%).

If states are required to take on some of the costs of SNAP food benefits, we will likely see cost-cutting measures at the state level, such as reducing benefits amounts from “$6.40 per person per day, the national average under the Congressional Budget Office’s projections for 2026, to $4.80” neither of which is sufficient for a complete, healthy meal now, let alone as prices rise. Or eligibility may be restricted further, making it harder to apply for or receive benefits. In the worst-case scenario, states can choose to opt out of SNAP, meaning kids and families will go hungry. If a recession happens as expected, states like Arkansas will struggle even more to adjust for the additional people who will need food benefits.

Shifting responsibility to the states for the cost of food benefits will make SNAP access and benefits more uneven — if available at all — depending on where people live in the country. States such as Arkansas that have lower incomes and higher poverty rates will likely be states most negatively impacted by such a cost shift. More families in Arkansas will go hungry. For Arkansas’s children and families who are already struggling, this will have devastating consequences.

To see the percentage of families currently supported by SNAP in your county and learn what the tax cuts to SNAP would mean there, explore the map below.  

Source: AACF Analysis of U.S. Census data (5-Year American Community Survey).