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Hunger shouldn’t exist in the wealthiest nation in the world, but it does. Administration after administration has tried various ways to cut hunger (some good, some bad). Rather than working to cut hunger (especially during Hunger Action Month), Trump and Republicans’ actions from last year did away with the annual hunger report while cutting anti-hunger programs. Those impacts are about to take shape now and one of the places we’ll see hunger descend is on our schools. Let’s address this.
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The rare, triple-win in government.
Over 800,000 students benefit from free school meals in Virginia. Some receive them because the entire school receives free school meals, while other students receive them through an individual application or something else called “direct certification”.
Direct certification is one of my favorite pieces of government efficiency and practically nobody knows about it. Through this function, families who participate in SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, etc are automatically certified for free school meals. It eases the paperwork burden on low-income parents working multiple jobs and/or caring for dependents, reduces the burden on school staff since they no longer need to process applications, and helps our taxes go towards services rather than bureaucracy. It’s a rare triple win!
But…if' we’re writing about it here, then that means something is about to happen, right?
That’s a good spidey sense. And yes, you’re right. Something indeed is happening.
The Big Beautiful Law
The Big Beautiful Law (BBL), like other BBLs, is dangerous. It not only put in a permanent tax cut for the richest people in history, it did so by cutting programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare. These will take place in phased approaches. The next phase takes place October 1, 2026.
Changes to SNAP over the past year have resulted in more than 100,000 Virginians being removed from SNAP. These changes included:
Increasing the work requirement age from 54 to 64.
Work requirement exemptions for parents and other family members responsible for a dependent were changed, lowering the qualifying age from 18 to 14.
Simply put, work requirements don’t work. The SNAP benefit amount is roughly $6 per person per day. Nobody is trying to stay on that benefit forever. Most of those who can work, do work. What work requirements do is force people to find whatever job they can so they don’t lose access to food. This typically results in a low-paying job, meaning they’ll still need SNAP benefits. If SNAP participants had more time to find a better-paying job, they would not only do so but also no longer need SNAP. This would be another triple win - the person receives services, the burden on adminstrative staff decreases because they wouldn’t need to process so much paperwork, and this reduces the taxpayer’s burden.
Ageism will box out the people between 54 and 64, while young parents will need to find a job they can work at while their children are in school. These are hard to come by, especially in this job market. The BBL also removed the work requirement exemption for veterans, homeless people, and former foster care youth.
That’s why over 5 million Americans/100,000 Virginians lost SNAP over the past year. Because so many people lost SNAP, their children lost direct certification for free school meals. We don’t have numbers for the direct impact because Virginia’s Department of Education doesn’t track this. (If I’m wrong, happy to update this). When SNAP enrollment shrinks, so does participation in the school meal program. The schools have to scramble to get applications to the parents and adjust their own work schedules to process the applications. That increase in administrative burden becomes unnecessary bureaucracy that taxpayers are paying. Is this a triple loss? No, it becomes a five-fold loss.
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When children are hungry at school, their ability to learn decreases because their bodies are focused on their hunger. They act out in “hanger” which can put them into the school-to-prison pipeline. All the taxes we pay for teachers and school infrastructure are wasted when children go hungry in schools. This ends up hurting not only the child’s future but also hamstringing the nation’s future.
To recap:
More work for parents,
more work for school administration,
more taxpayer funds going towards bureaucracy instead of services,
children’s performance in schools declining, and
the nation’s future compromised
A five-fold loss.
If anything, the President, who created a “Department of Government Efficiency,” made things as inefficient as they are cruel.
October 1 is a fateful day
The BBL’s next change starts in a couple of weeks. Currently, the federal government splits the cost of administering SNAP 50/50 with the states. On October 1, 2026, states will now take on 75% of the cost of administration. This will cost Virginia $93 million.
Virginia has budgeted for this change (thanks, General Assembly and Governor Spanberger). But, that means VA’s budgeted amount is not going to other programs that need the funding, too. This massive cost shift comes in the midst of many SNAP implementation changes - like transitioning from the old debit card to the new chip card, work requirement changes, age changes, exemption removals, etc. All these burdens are deliberate - they’re designed to INCREASE the amount of errors states make.
You might be wondering why Republicans would want to increase errors? Well, that’s for the next phase - which begins October 2027. Currently, the federal government covers 100% of the SNAP benefit amount. After October 1, 2027 (next year), the federal government will shift a percentage of the benefits cost to states based on their error rates. It’s a diabolical maneuver from Republicans
Unless a new, empathetic Congress takes over in January 2027, we have even worse cuts coming in 2027.
4 Things You Can Do
If your family lost SNAP, your kids are no longer automatically certified. You have to submit a meal application directly to the school online. Each school division uses a different web portal. If you don’t know where that application is, please contact your school’s office. Share this information with your neighbors who lost SNAP.
Ask the General Assembly to fund universal school meals. Virginia already covers the reduced-price copay; the next step is free for every student, which decouples meals from SNAP paperwork entirely. The General Assembly session starts in January, so the window is now to get your state senators and delegates to sign on. Other states have done this successfully. It’s time for Virginia to be next.
Write to your Congressperson. In Virginia, if they’re a Republican, they voted for these cuts. If they’re a Democrat, they voted against these cuts. Let them know what you think about the cuts and what you’d like them to do in the next Congress.
Check your voter registration. Or, if this is your first time voting, register to vote! Early voting begins Friday, September 18 and it’s important that you vote for the government you need.
Onward and upward,
Salaam
P.S. I spoke with an elected official today who told me that while he’s seen a lot of discussion about an issue online, he’s only received emails from 9 constituents about it. Action numbers 2 and 3 are critical to act on.
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