Budget Reconciliation Bill

Friday, September 12th, 2025

Photo Credits: FARSB

The Budget Reconciliation Bill Would Increase Hunger While Undermining Our Efforts to Nourish Our Community

FARSB is concerned that the Budget Reconciliation Bill proposal includes significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)*. These cuts would increase hunger in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties among our communities and put our food bank in an impossible position. SNAP provides nine meals for everyone that a food bank distributes. There is no way our charitable food network can make up the difference.

Food banks are already stretched thin, responding to sustained high need that never receded after the pandemic. Reducing benefits will not only increase hunger but will also shift the burden onto local food banks that cannot fill the resulting gap. With growing needs in our area, like our Moreno Valley Senior Mobile Pantry Program, we've seen so much growth throughout the last fiscal year that we've relocated our food distribution to a larger community center to accommodate up to 400 households each month, up from just over 200 households previously.

If passed, the bill would harm our community by:

• Shifting SNAP costs onto states and counties: breaking SNAP’s foundation as a federal entitlement program available to all who qualify by placing impossible financial burdens on California and every state, which will require imposing major cuts to benefits and eligibility. 

• Expanding harsh and punitive time limits: historic expansions of the failed “work for food” requirements onto adults past SNAP’s definition of “elderly” to age 65, and onto parents with children as young as seven. Time limits are proven to cut SNAP participation by half while not improving employment. This cruel, failed policy takes food assistance away because adults couldn’t navigate red tape, not because they refused to work.

• Reduces Quality Control tolerance to $0, which will artificially increase error rates: “The current tolerance threshold exists because SNAP QC reviews follow different verification processes than when caseworkers perform eligibility and benefit determinations. These differences result in inevitable, small variations between the two calculations. By creating a $0 tolerance threshold, every state agency will have excessively high payment error rates, creating undue financial hardship on states and distracting from the important work of resolving real payment errors that need to be addressed.”

• Worsens SNAP benefit adequacy by mandating that future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan be cost-neutral, which will erode the average SNAP benefit to just $6.20 a day. The Thrifty Food Plan ensured that rising grocery costs were accounted for, and without it, SNAP benefits are rendered less effective.

• Restrict the Standard Utility Allowance to the Elderly &

  Disabled households, further reducing benefits, and ignoring the reality of skyrocketing utility and housing costs across California. Though the elderly are often greatly affected by utility costs, households without elderly persons are also struggling with higher utility costs, and taking this allowance from them will have negative effects on the overall cost of living and food insecurity.

Real Consequences

For those receiving benefits through SNAP, the financial support serves as a lifeline. This includes neighbors, friends, and family members who rely on these benefits, and they have a significant impact on those who depend on this program.

The benefits that come from being able to purchase enough groceries are vast, and as these SNAP beneficiaries will tell you, not having the benefits, or having them cut, would drastically harm their livelihoods. Each of the stories below is a different perspective on how SNAP affects people's lives and why FARSB is advocating to protect and expand SNAP.

For those receiving benefits through SNAP, the financial support serves as a lifeline. This includes neighbors, friends, and family members who rely on these benefits, and they have a significant impact on those who depend on this program.

The benefits that come from being able to purchase enough groceries are vast, and as these SNAP beneficiaries will attest, not having the benefits or having them cut would drastically harm their livelihoods. Each of the stories below presents a different perspective on how SNAP affects people's lives and why FARSB is advocating for the protection and expansion of SNAP.

If you'd like to find out more about FARSB advocacy, please visit: FeedingIE.org/advocacy

*CalFresh in California.