Tens of thousands of Oregonians may be at risk of going hungry due to Republican cuts in funding and changes in eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) taking effect this month—with the ongoing federal government shutdown imperiling benefits for thousands more. 

Right now, roughly one in six Oregonians—around 757,000 people—recieve SNAP benefits (formerly called food stamps). But that number will likely be reduced in the coming months as a result of H.R. 1, popularly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which slashed federal spending on a number of assistance programs. It was signed into law on July 4. 

“I’ve been organizing for a decade, in food access for years, and people say this is the most complex and turbulent time for folks using food assistance or basic assistance programs,” David Wieland, a policy advocate at Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon, said. 

The government shutdown is compounding the chaos. The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) began informing Oregonians enrolled in SNAP late last week that they may not receive their November benefits following a Trump administration directive to states to halt benefit distribution. 

But even after the shutdown ends, the effects of H.R. 1, which also made deep cuts to Medicaid and extended tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, will be long lasting. A spokesperson for ODHS wrote to the Mercury that the state expects “at least” 313,000 SNAP recipients to be impacted by mandated changes to the program. 

Much of that impact will be due to changing work requirements. H.R. 1 raises the age limit for the work requirement from 55 to 65, and no longer exempts adults with dependents 13 years of age or older or residents of many rural communities who were previously exempt.

The effective elimination of geographic exemptions from SNAP work requirements is key: able-bodied SNAP recipients not caring for children are generally required to work, volunteer, or go to school or a training program to receive benefits, but not in areas of the country with unemployment rates above 10 percent or areas that lack adequate jobs.

In Oregon, 30 of the state’s 36 counties have received exemptions from work requirement rules in the past due to the lack of jobs. But that criteria for exemption has been cut, which will likely subject nearly all of those 313,000 SNAP recipients to work requirements. 

Oregon began implementing the new eligibility rules this month. According to Wieland, the added layer of bureaucracy will likely ensnare a number of unsuspecting Oregonians.  

“The biggest effect is that people who are already working and should qualify will miss the paperwork and deadlines, and be kicked off the programs,” Wieland said. “That directly targets refugee and asylum communities in Oregon, folks who are fleeing domestic violence and settling in Oregon.” 

Indeed, the Trump administration has made targeting immigrants one of its top priorities—and that aim is reflected in H.R. 1 as well. 

Most immigrants with legal status have long been eligible to receive SNAP assistance, but H.R. 1 restricts that access and outright bars immigrants with official humanitarian protections from receiving benefits as well. 

“This is a particularly sickening extension of that policy,” Wieland said. “We’re talking about victims of labor or sex trafficking who have followed the legal process and been granted asylee status in Oregon who are being told that they no longer qualify for this really basic food assistance program.”

H.R. 1 does not stop there: It also removes work requirement exemptions for veterans, children raised in foster care, and people without stable housing. 

The bill is also, at the same time, set to disrupt the state’s ability to fund SNAP. H.R. 1 reduces federal spending on nutrition programs by $187 billion over the next 10 years—largely by shifting more of the cost of administering SNAP onto the states, forcing states to pay 75 percent of the cost of administering the program, up from 50 percent. 

That means the state of Oregon is looking at an additional $75 million in annual SNAP administration costs starting in the 2027 fiscal year, and will be forced to pay millions more if the state’s payment error rate is higher than 6 percent.

In total, the ODHS is estimating that the state will need to contribute roughly $385 million per year to maintain its current service levels once all the provisions of H.R. 1 take effect over the course of the next year. 

The cuts to SNAP funding and addition of work requirements come as rates of food insecurity are already on the rise in the US, and states and food assistance programs are scrambling to deal with sweeping United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding cuts. 

As a result of the cuts, even more of the onus to fund SNAP will fall on a state legislature already bracing for a sizable budget shortfall that has prompted Gov. Tina Kotek to tell state agencies to brace for cuts. 

“We believe the state should be looking at ways to raise new revenue,” Wieland said. “As the federal government abandons Oregonians, it is clear that Oregon needs to chart a path forward that doesn't count on support like this—and it'll be a seismic shift for our state government, but we can't afford to wait.”

Wieland said the state should move immediately to guarantee free school meals to every child in Oregon, as well as increase administrative funding for SNAP to ensure the program can remain functional in the face of the federal attack. 

The state’s Democratic leaders, including Kotek, have condemned cuts to SNAP—with Kotek saying in a statement that her office’s priority is “making sure every impacted Oregonian knows what’s changing and where to turn for help.”

Given the state’s budget situation, however, it is not clear that there will be a push to reroute millions of dollars to cover the federal cuts to SNAP funding. 

Wieland said he’s “not envious of the position legislators are in,” but he argued that Oregon must change how it understands its relationship with the federal government and take matters of public health into its own hands. 

This has already happened to a certain degree in the healthcare space, where Oregon, Washington, and California formed a healthcare alliance last month to preserve vaccine access on the West Coast in response to the anti-vaccine leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services. 

In the meantime, however, people who rely on SNAP benefits may be left in a dangerous position. 

“You can’t short your rent in the same way you can short your food,” Wieland said. “I talk to way too many people who are already skipping meals and waiting until their stomach hurts until they eat. And to think about the scale of the impact of this, with the way that folks are already struggling to get the food they deserve… it just keeps me up at night.”