Starting Thursday, Americans in five states who receive government help to pay for groceries will see new restrictions on the soda, candy and other foods they can buy with those benefits.
Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia are the first of 18 states to pass waivers that prohibit the purchase of certain foods through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
It’s part of a push by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to urge states to remove foods deemed unhealthy from the $100 billion federal program — long known as food stamps — that serves 42 million Americans.
“We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the diseases those programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.
The efforts are aimed at reducing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes associated with sugary drinks and other foods, a key goal of the Kennedy Make America Healthy Again effort.
But retail industry and health policy experts said state SNAP programs, already under pressure from steep budget cuts, are unprepared for the complex changes, without complete lists of affected foods and technical challenges at the point of sale that vary by state and store. And research remains mixed on whether restricting SNAP purchases improves diet quality and health.
The National Retail Federation, a trade association, predicted longer checkout lines and more customer complaints as SNAP recipients learn which foods are affected by the new waivers.
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen for people trying to buy food and being turned away,” said Kate Bauer, a nutrition science expert at the University of Michigan.
A report by the National Grocers Association and other industry trade groups estimated that implementing the SNAP restrictions would cost American retailers $1.6 billion initially and $759 million each year going forward.
“Punishing SNAP recipients means we can all pay more at the grocery store,” said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director for the anti-foam advocacy group Food Research & Action Center.
The waivers are a departure from decades of federal policy first enacted in 1964 and later authorized by the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, which said SNAP benefits could be used for “any food or food product intended for human consumption,” except for alcohol and hot ready-to-eat foods. The law also says SNAP can’t pay for tobacco.
In the past, lawmakers have proposed preventing SNAP from paying for expensive meats like steak or so-called junk foods like chips and ice cream.
But previous waiver requests were rejected based on USDA research that concluded the restrictions would be expensive and complicated to implement and might not change recipients’ buying habits or reduce health problems such as obesity.
However, under the second Trump administration, states were encouraged and even incentivized to seek waivers — and they responded.
“This is not the usual top-down, one-size-fits-all public health agenda,” Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said when he announced his state’s request last spring. “We focus on root causes, transparent information and real results.”
The five state waivers that go into effect Jan. 1 affect about 1.4 million people. Utah and West Virginia will ban the use of SNAP to buy sodas and soft drinks, while Nebraska will ban soft drinks and energy drinks. Indiana will target soft drinks and candy. In Iowa, which has the most restrictive rules to date, SNAP limits affect taxable foods, including juice and candy, but also certain prepared foods.
“The list of items does not provide enough specific information to prepare a SNAP participant to go to the grocery store,” Plata-Nino wrote in a blog post. “Many additional items – including certain prepared foods – will also be prohibited, even if they are not clearly identified in the notification to households.”
Marc Craig, 47, of Des Moines, said he has been living in his car since October. He said the new waivers will make it more difficult to determine how to use the $298 in SNAP benefits he receives each month, while increasing the stigma he feels at the cash register.
“They treat people on food stamps like we’re not people,” Craig said.
The SNAP waivers passed now and in the coming months will last for two years, with an option to extend them for three more, according to the Department of Agriculture. Each state is obliged to assess the impact of the changes.
Health experts worry that the waivers ignore larger factors affecting the health of SNAP recipients, said Anand Parekh, director of policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
“This does not solve the two fundamental problems, which is that healthy food in this country is not affordable and unhealthy food is cheap and ubiquitous,” he said.
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