New Work Requirements For SNAP In Maryland: What To Know

New federal work requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients began this week for hundreds of thousands of Maryland residents.

On Monday, sweeping changes to the nation’s largest food aid program took effect under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or HR 1, which President Donald Trump signed in July.

Many SNAP recipients were already required to show that they work, volunteer or attend job training at least 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits. The new law expands the work requirement to people between 18 and 64 years old, and parents of children ages 14 through 17.

The new rules eliminate exemptions for military veterans, people experiencing homelessness and young adults aging out of foster care. The law also makes it more difficult for individual states to bypass federal work requirements.

The Congressional Budget Office says the new requirements are expected to cut the monthly number of SNAP recipients by nearly 2.4 million over the next 10 years.

More than 690,000 Maryland residents rely on SNAP to meet their basic nutritional needs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows 59 percent of recipients are households with children, while 32 percent are in families with members who are older adults or are disabled.

Monthly benefits from the program, formerly known as “food stamps,” average around $180 per person. Recipients can use the funds to buy a wide range of grocery items. SNAP benefits can’t be used to purchase alcohol, tobacco or “nonfood” items like pet food or cleaning supplies.

The Trump administration has claimed that SNAP has grown out of control, alleging that overreliance on the program and widespread fraud have forced elected officials to take action.

Under the changes, Maryland will also be required to pay for 75 percent of SNAP administrative costs and up to 15 percent of benefit costs, according to the state Department of Human Services. This will place a burden of an estimated $412.5 million on Maryland taxpayers, an increase of just over $300 million from what the state currently contributes.

In a virtual joint meeting of the Senate Finance and the House Health and Government Operations committees this week, Maryland legislators were once again told that changes to SNAP and Medicaid will cost the state millions to implement.

Finance Chair Pamela Beidle (D-Anne Arundel) summed up the changes as “a lot of doom and gloom.”

“We have serious issues facing us this year,” she said.

Historically, the federal government covered all of the costs of SNAP benefits and split the costs of administering the program with the states.

But under HR 1, states will be expected to contribute 75% of administrative costs, starting next year. For Maryland, which currently spends $115 million for its half of SNAP administrative costs, that means another $57.5 million each year, or a new state total of $172.5 million a year just to run the program.

Meanwhile, Maryland will likely have to pay some of the benefits themselves, due to a new penalty on states that have a high “payment error rate,” meaning benefits were overpaid or underpaid due to administrative mistakes, not due to fraudulent actions by recipients.

Under HR 1, states with an error rate over 6 percent will have to contribute some state money to fund SNAP benefits. Maryland’s error rate of 13.64 percent is one of the highest in the country. At that rate, the state would be expected to pay 15 percent of the $1.6 billion required to put money on Marylanders’ SNAP cards – or $240 million more than it pays now.

“It’s not fraud, it’s a question of bureaucracy,” Webster Ye, chief of staff for the Human Services Department, said of the error rate. “It refers to overpayments and underpayments in which we, the Maryland state agency and the administrative staff, are the ones that make that mistake.”

Maryland’s error rate spiked in 2022 at 35.56 percent, which Ye attributed to a surge of use under the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with high turnover at the department that led to new staff who “weren’t adequately trained.” Before the pandemic, Maryland’s error rate was below 10 percent.

The Department of Human Services is working to bring down the error rate by hiring more staff and providing additional training to administer the program, improving technical processes and working to streamline the application and renewal process.

“That’s great news,” said Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County), who initially asked if the error rate included benefit theft. “Obviously, it would be a huge savings for the state and to taxpayers if you can bring that error rate down.

Maryland Matters contributed to this report.