Proposed federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program would come with a steep price tag for Michigan: an estimated $800 million annually to cover the benefits residents receive, plus another $90 million a year in new administrative costs.
“The magnitude of the proposed cuts would place a significant burden on Michigan’s budget, and it is unlikely that the state could backfill those federal cuts without severely impacting other programs including education, public safety, and Medicaid,” according to an analysis from the State Budget Office (SBO) dated June 2.
That means it’s likely the state would have to cut the food assistance that some 1.4 million Michiganders (roughly 15% of the state’s population) received last year, more than half of which are families with kids.
“Anytime you're reducing that pot of money, that prioritization process becomes more challenging,” said Elizabeth Hertel, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). “And it is harder to make sure that these programs…that we know are keeping families together, making sure that they have food on the table, makes it really hard to sustain those programs when we don't have the level of funding that we should.”
The SBO analysis is based on the budget reconciliation package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last month, which substantially shifts costs of the SNAP program from the federal government to the states. It would also put new limits on how the state can use participation in other assistance programs, like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, to determine eligibility for food assistance and benefit levels, according to the SBO analysis. And it would raise the age limits on work requirements, which currently apply to adults ages 18-54, up to age 64.
“This policy would disproportionately impact low-income seniors, many of whom will struggle to meet new work requirements or would lose access to food assistance,” according to the analysis.
A reduction in SNAP benefits would also impact the broader state economy, Hertel said, because some $3 billion of those benefits were spent at Michigan retailers in 2024.
“SNAP benefits are paid directly to retailers and grocers, so this would remove parts of their revenue, and depending on how much they rely on the SNAP program, that could put their feasibility in jeopardy,” she said. That would potentially worsen food access in rural or urban areas, while also “affecting the economic environment in those areas, because you’ve lost one of their employers. And we know that those sorts of things just sort of cascade once they start happening.”
The proposed cuts to SNAP could also be compounded by the potentially historic cuts to Medicaid that are also in the reconciliation bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates would increase the number of people without health insurance by 10.9 million nationally.
“We know that two thirds of those people [in the SNAP program] are also covered by Medicaid, which means that we are threatening health care access and food access to almost a million people,” Hertel said. “This is a significant program that people rely on to be able to ensure that they have food on the table for themselves and their families, and reductions to the program will certainly increase food insecurity across the state and have a negative impact on health outcomes and development for people everywhere.”
