SerpApi.Org
A year after Congress passed President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, SNAP enrollment has dropped by more than 4.5 million people nationwide.
In Alabama, nearly 82,000 people have lost food assistance, including more than 23,000 children.
LaTrell Clifford Wood, hunger policy advocate for Alabama Arise, said families are already worried about feeding their kids as school starts.
"Alabama is home to some of the most food insecure counties in the country. As Alabama families are getting ready to go back to school, I'm hearing a lot of folks concerned about how they are going to feed their children," Wood reported.
Alabama is among 36 states set to face enormous new SNAP costs starting in October 2027. The state will be required to appropriate an additional $174 million next year to continue providing food assistance for more than 660,000 Alabamians.
The cost shift is tied to states' "payment error rates," a measure largely reflecting clerical mistakes, not fraud. Wood pointed out lawmakers are looking at forfeiting massive federal funds over what Wood calls a "morally ambiguous" metric. Supporters of the law said it is needed to reduce government spending and hold states accountable for program errors.
Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, representing 67,000 pediatricians nationwide, said the SNAP cuts are putting children's health at risk and the consequences will last a lifetime.
"The health consequences that this has for children in the immediate term don't end in the immediate term. Children are developing organisms, and the impact that this will have on them as children will follow them into adulthood. And so a hungry child is a stressed child," Racine emphasized.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 1.5 million children nationwide have lost SNAP benefits. In Alabama, more than 23,000 children have lost food assistance.
Wood is encouraging Alabamians to contact their lawmakers and urge Congress to delay the cost shift.
