Photo via AZ House GOP
By Nicole Ludden, Hank Stephenson | Arizona Agenda
The looming federal changes to the SNAP program could strip food benefits from an estimated 147,000 Arizonans.
This week, House Republicans advanced a slate of bills that could deepen the impact.
Newly emboldened by the federal changes that passed last year under H.R.1, or Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” Republican lawmakers passed four bills through the House Health & Human Services Committee on Monday that would tighten the rules for receiving food stamps.
There’s a clear incentive for the crackdown: Under H.R.1, states have to start paying for SNAP benefits based on their error rate, or the percentage of benefits they administer incorrectly. Until now, the federal government covered the full cost of those benefits, regardless of a state’s error rate.
Arizona’s current SNAP error rate is 8.8%. If it stays above 6%, the state will be forced to start paying for some of the food benefits in 2027 — an expense Arizona has never had to cover before.
Republicans are pushing changes they say will bring Arizona’s error rate under 6%, largely by making government workers verify more information, more often. But those new steps could also make it harder for eligible families to stay enrolled.
