Unless Congress acts, Alabama will have to provide a huge amount of additional state funding next year to maintain food assistance benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). HR 1, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, shifted significant SNAP costs from the federal government to states in an effort to finance large tax breaks for wealthy households and highly profitable corporations. The law will require most states to pay for a percentage of SNAP benefits – up to 15% for some states.
Alabama Arise joined 43 partner groups in a letter asking U.S. Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville to support delaying the SNAP cost shift as part of the upcoming Farm Bill. The full text of the letter is below.
Letter text
Dear Senators Britt and Tuberville,
We, the undersigned 44 Alabama-based groups, write to ask for your timely action to protect our state budget from significant new costs under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and to support families in Alabama who are struggling to afford food. As you know, the federal budget bill enacted last summer creates a new requirement for our state to fund a portion of SNAP food benefits if our SNAP error rate isn’t low enough, shifting big costs to our state. Some states got a two-year delay to decrease their high error rates, but others, including Alabama, didn’t. Every state needs to get that same reasonable extra time to succeed in improving their SNAP program.
The stakes are very high. Based on the most recent error rate, Alabama could face about $175 million a year in new state SNAP costs. The error rate is determined by a metric comprising a sample of 1,000 eligible households per state for both underpayments and overpayments made to SNAP users by the Department of Human Resources (DHR). Importantly: The SNAP error rate is not a fraud rate.
States already have significant verification and integrity processes in place, and our Alabama DHR is working hard to continue to reduce errors and improve accuracy. These new federal requirements come on a short timeline, and states without the two-year delay only have six months to reduce their error rates to ease the financial burden of the new SNAP state match.
While HR 1 provided a few states with the highest SNAP errors with two extra years to give them more time to reduce their errors, Alabama is not one of the few to benefit from this extra time. It’s not fair for the worst-performing states to get a better deal than states like ours that have had lower error rates. Alabama is committed to running a strong, accurate SNAP program that protects both taxpayers and families. But we need more time to make needed improvements while also protecting eligible families who need food assistance to help make ends meet.
We ask you to work with your colleagues and Senate leadership to extend that practical delay in the SNAP cost shift to all states. This would give our state and others the chance to succeed in reducing its error rate – and thus its state match – while protecting participants. Extending the current two-year delay to all states would ensure every state has the same opportunity to strengthen their programs.
This proposal has the bipartisan support of National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Counties and the American Public Health and Human Services Association (state SNAP directors).
We hope we can count on you to work to protect Alabama by ensuring any farm legislation that moves this year extends the current SNAP cost shift delay to all states so we all have the same opportunity to reduce error rates, maintain SNAP participation and help families across Alabama keep food on the table.
Thank you.
Signatories
Sincerely,
- Alabama Arise
- Alabama Institute for Social Justice
- Alabama Network of Family Resource Centers
- Alabama Poor People’s Campaign
- Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network
- All Nations Church of God (Montgomery)
- Animal Kinship Ministry (Tuscaloosa)
- Bay Area Women Coalition, Incorporated (Mobile)
- Bread for the World, Alabama Chapter (Birmingham)
- Church and Society, First United Methodist Church (Anniston)
- Community Enabler Developer (Anniston)
- Community Food Bank of Central Alabama
- East Lake United Methodist Church (Birmingham)
- Feeding Alabama
- First Christian Church of Montgomery
- Five Horizons Health Services
- Grace Presbyterian Church (Tuscaloosa)
- Gratitude Foundation
- Greater Birmingham Ministries
- Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama
- Hispanic Catholic Social Services – La Casita (Birmingham)
- Interfaith Mission Service (Huntsville)
- League of Women Voters of Alabama
- LunarLab (Birmingham)
- Mary’s House Catholic Worker (Birmingham)
- Mephibosheth LLC (Mobile)
- National Lawyers Guild – Alabama Chapter
- North Alabama Area Labor Council
- North Alabama Peace Network
- Progressive Women of Northeast Alabama
- Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty
- St. Paul United Methodist Church (Birmingham)
- Samford Community Outreach Group
- Sisters of St. Joseph (Mobile)
- Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative
- Stand Up Mobile
- The Across Network (Camp Hill)
- The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc. (Gadsden)
- The Yellowhammer Fund
- Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Auburn
- Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham
- United for a Fair Economy
- United Way of West Alabama
- Voters Legal Justice Watch Group
cc: Office of the Honorable Kay Ivey, Governor of Alabama
cc: Bill Poole, Director, Alabama Department of Finance
cc: Members of the Alabama Senate Finance and Taxation – General Fund Committee
cc: Members of the Alabama House Ways and Means – General Fund Committee