Kelly Thweatt stood outside a government office in Warrenton, Missouri, clutching a notice she didn’t fully understand. Her food assistance had been slashed, and at 64 years old, she now faces a troubling reality: prove you’re working, or lose the help that keeps you fed.
“I can satisfy myself with a bag of chips per day,” Thweatt said quietly. “So if that’s what I need to do, that’s what I need to do.”
Her situation captures a growing crisis across Missouri and the nation. A federal judge called the state’s food assistance system “broken and inaccessible” more than a year ago. Despite court orders to fix it, things haven’t gotten much better. Now, new federal requirements are about to make everything harder.
The changes stem from Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July. The law cuts $187 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the next decade—a 20% reduction that shifts more costs and administrative burdens onto already struggling states.
More than 150,000 Missourians are at risk of losing some or all of their food benefits because of expanded work requirements that took effect November 1st. Nationwide, at least 2.4 million Americans could lose assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Missouri’s problems started long before these new rules kicked in. Federal Judge Douglas Harpool ruled in May 2024 that the state’s system was “overwhelmed,” had wrongly denied assistance to qualified applicants, and had caused people to go hungry as a direct result.
The core problem is simple but devastating: people can’t get through to state workers to complete required interviews. Applicants spend hours on hold or waiting in line outside offices. Sometimes so many people are on hold that the phone system just hangs up on them.
Walk into the SNAP office in Warrenton, 60 miles west of St. Louis, and you’ll see makeshift phone booths lining the walls. People sit in cubicles, using phones to complete interviews with officials somewhere else in the state. A handwritten sign on the floor asks for patience while technology improvements are underway.
Some Missouri SNAP offices operate with just one employee, according to court records. The state says that’s appropriate for locations with lower demand, but advocates say it’s part of a broader pattern of underfunding.
The numbers tell a grim story. In the 16 months after Judge Harpool’s order, nearly half of all denied applications were rejected at least partly because no interview was completed. That’s not because applicants didn’t try—it’s because the system couldn’t accommodate them.
Judge Harpool found Missouri failed to show significant improvement. The state hadn’t documented hiring a single additional worker or investing any new resources to speed up application processing, he wrote in a follow-up order this year.
Missouri’s Department of Social Services says the legislature provided money to hire temporary workers in other areas, freeing up existing staff to handle SNAP applications. The agency says it makes multiple attempts to reach applicants once an application comes in.
But Katie Deabler, an attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice who represented Missourians in the lawsuit, sees it differently.
“These are your neighbors, these are your kids’ classmates who are going hungry when the system doesn’t work,” she said.
The program currently helps more than 650,000 Missourians—that’s like filling Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium eight times over. About 20% of Missouri’s children receive food assistance every month, according to the Missouri Foundation for Health.
Roughly 68% of the state’s food aid recipients are children, adults over 60, or people with disabilities. Many who can work already do.
The new federal requirements will force more seniors, parents, veterans, homeless people, and former foster youth to clear additional hurdles to get help, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For Thweatt, the timing couldn’t be worse. She lost her life partner of three decades a few months ago. She’s been out of the workforce for nearly 20 years. After paying for her spot at a mobile home park, she’s left with about $300 monthly from Social Security. Her SNAP benefits, now reduced to $220 per month, made the difference between eating and going hungry.
She won’t turn 65 until April, which means she falls under the expanded work requirement. When her benefits come up for renewal, she’ll need to prove she has a job. Her car needs repairs, and the license plates are about to expire, but she doesn’t have money for either. She’s selling everything she can, including an antique bedroom set.
The federal changes come on top of chaos caused by the recent government shutdown. The Trump administration initially refused to use emergency funds to keep the food aid program running. Benefits lapsed for millions of people, including Missourians, on November 1st as the shutdown stretched into its fifth week. Two federal judges eventually ordered the administration to release emergency funds before the shutdown ended on November 12th.
Missouri’s struggles reflect a nationwide pattern. Food assistance advocates say strained state systems across the country struggle to deliver timely aid. Alaska has faced chronic backlogs for years. Last year, then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent letters to 44 governors urging faster application processing and more accurate benefit determinations.
Ed Bolen, who leads food aid strategies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says expanding work requirements will harm the nation’s most vulnerable people. But the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability argues the requirement preserves assistance for the “truly needy.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson previously described the cost shift to states as “modest” and necessary to reduce fraud. States “don’t have enough skin in the game,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” before the bill passed.
Christine Woody, food security policy manager with Empower Missouri, says the state lacks both the money and the will to fix its food aid system. She and other advocates fear the federal changes will erode the nation’s most powerful defense against hunger.
“For a state like Missouri that is already struggling to operate the program, these new rules couldn’t come at a worse time,” Bolen said.
Missouri foreshadows trouble ahead for other states, he explained. Many are reluctant to fund their food aid programs adequately. Now they’ll be forced to use state dollars to fill gaps left by federal cuts, which “sets states up to fail.”
If states don’t come up with the money, Bolen said, they face two options: make it harder for people to qualify for SNAP, or end the program entirely.
For people like Thweatt, those aren’t abstract policy debates. They’re daily survival calculations are measured in bags of chips and antique furniture sold to pay the bills.
