BATON ROUGE — Changes in federal law will require Louisiana to spend $42.3 million more on the SNAP program in the coming fiscal year, while food-stamp recipients cope with expanded work requirements and rising grocery costs.
Under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last summer, Louisiana will absorb a larger share of SNAP’s administrative and benefit costs as federal contributions decrease.
That shift will cost the state $42.3 million more in the fiscal year starting July 1. Louisiana’s additional spending could potentially grow to $151 million the following year if it cannot lower its error rate to a new standard in administering the program, according to the Louisiana Division of Administration.
The new federal law also eliminated exemptions from work requirements for people 55 to 64 years old who do not have dependents under the age of 14 and for veterans and homeless people. That could lead to a loss of eligibility for some who cannot work or participate in volunteer or training activities for 80 hours a month.
More than 756,000 people in Louisiana, or 16% of the state’s population, rely on SNAP benefits. About 53% of them are children or elderly.
Food banks had already seen an increase in demand last year due to inflation in grocery and housing costs and a federal government shutdown that delayed benefits, and officials fear they will experience further strain.
“We did see an increase in demand in 2025 when SNAP benefits were reduced, as many households turned to food banks to help fill the gap,” said Jordyn Mancuso, a vice president at the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank.
“So far in 2026, demand across our 11-parish service area has remained relatively steady, though many families continue to rely on both SNAP and charitable food assistance as food costs remain high,” she said.
But if the policy changes cause some people to lose SNAP benefits, “we would likely see more people turning to the charitable food network for support,” she added. “While food banks work hard to meet community needs, the charitable food system was never designed to replace federal nutrition programs like SNAP, which provide significantly more purchasing power for families.”
The Baton Rouge bank distributed 14.4 million pounds of food in central Louisiana in 2025. That was down from 16.6 million in 2024 after the Trump administration canceled $94 million in federal food shipments in the spring of 2025, and corporate donations declined as food costs rose.
The additional costs to the state will be part of the budget discussions in the legislative session starting Monday.
The new federal law will increase the state’s share this October to 75% of the administrative costs of the SNAP program from 50%. The federal government used to pay 50% but will only pay 25% under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The change will take effect three months into the state’s next fiscal year. So even though Louisiana will have to cover an additional $56 million a year, the Legislature will need to budget for only three-fourths of that total now.
The new law also requires Louisiana to cover 5% of the SNAP benefit costs in any future years that its payment error rate stays above 6%. If Louisiana does not lower its current 7.61% error rate, which includes overpayments and underpayments, the state will have to allocate an additional $95 million to SNAP.
Camille Conaway, executive director for economic independence at the state’s Office of Economic Stability, said at a recent meeting that “we are taking bold and aggressive action with our teams to get below 6%.”
SNAP recipients across Louisiana got a sense of what it was like to temporarily lose benefits during the federal government shutdown last fall.
After weeks of uncertainty as to whether recipients would receive benefits, Louisiana used state funds to cover 25% of benefits for households with disabled and elderly people. The federal government reopened on Nov. 13 and paid the delayed benefits to all recipients.
The shutdown came as many SNAP recipients were struggling with rising living costs.
Darrell Malveaux, a 48-year-old single dad of three who has been receiving SNAP for three years, has noticed the higher price of groceries.
The maximum monthly SNAP allotment for a household of four people is $994, which means that each person would have $8.23 per day to spend on food.
“It’s hard when you get towards the end of the month,” Malveaux said. “For about three weeks, I’ll be good, and then it’s tough in the end. The last time I went shopping, I noticed that the prices are getting higher, especially on the produce. I do green smoothies, so when I’m buying the product, I’m noticing the price increase. It plays a big role.”
With his health preventing him from working, Malveaux said that without the SNAP benefits, “we wouldn’t be able to manage.”
Former Louisiana State University student Samantha Records has supported herself since she was 17. During college, Records worked full-time as a bartender, paying all her own bills while striving to accomplish her academic goals.
“At 22 years old, I am responsible for my own rent, tuition and grocery bills,” she said. “It has been a challenge. However, I can confidently say that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the sole factor that has prevented my complete breakdown.”
In limiting the exemptions from work requirements, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act provides that recipients 55 to 65 years old can request waivers from work requirements only if they live in areas where the unemployment rate is 10% or higher.
SNAP recipients who are homeless, veterans, have a dependent between 14 and 17 years old, or are 24 years old and younger and aged out of foster care are no longer exempt from the work requirements.
The Louisiana Department of Health reports that there are 53,164 able-bodied adults without dependents on SNAP as of Oct. 1. They must continue to prove that they are working, volunteering, in job training or looking for work for at least 80 hours a month.
Jan Moller, the executive director of Invest in Louisiana, a non-partisan think tank that watches out for the poor, expressed concern that some eligible recipients might lose benefits because they did not fill out the correct form or never received it. Some also might have a disability that “is not yet approved by the right agency,” Moller said.
Louisiana Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said he views budgeting for the increased administrative costs as an opportunity to improve the program’s efficiency.
The state moved SNAP from the Department of Children and Family Services to the Louisiana Department of Health last October to save on administrative costs in serving an overlapping population.
The state also has saved $24.6 million in Medicaid costs by scrubbing the rolls of people who no longer live in Louisiana. McFarland said the savings could help cover the increase in SNAP costs.
He also suggested using data from the Office of Motor Vehicles data to lower SNAP’s administrative costs.
On Aug. 1, the vehicle office signed a $54 million contract to replace its 50-year-old computer system. Many SNAP and Medicaid recipients live in temporary housing, McFarland said. When they update their driver’s licenses, Louisiana could update their addresses in the SNAP database.
The SNAP Fraud Unit recouped $3.4 million from recipients in 2025. The Office of Economic Stability reports that 62% of cases were unintentional household errors, and 14% were administrative errors. Less than a quarter of cases were intentional violations.
“Our systems and teams are set up to make sure that we are running a clean and fair program,” Conaway, the office’s executive director for economic independence, said.
