New SNAP rules take effect Oct. 1, raising fears of more benefit cuts

More than 5 million Americans have lost food-stamp benefits since 2025. “I have to prove that I’m sick,” one SNAP recipient said.

More than 5 million Americans have lost food-stamp benefits since 2025. "I have to prove that I'm sick," one SNAP recipient said. Lori Covelli, 53, an unemployed social worker in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who last year was collecting $760 per month in food stamps, recently lost all her benefits after failing to find a job and running afoul of the program's work requirements. She had hoped to regain that aid on her 54th birthday, when she would age out of those restrictions, but then learned that a new federal law had extended the program's work requirement to 64. "They were saying, 'Just try to hold on until you turn 54,'" Covelli told CBS News in recounting discussions with employees at her state's office for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal name for the food-stamp program.

This summer — several months before Covelli turned 54 — she received a letter from SNAP that dashed those hopes. It told her that under the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA), which President Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, the work requirement had been extended for people up to age 64. "That's a long way off. At this point, SNAP benefits are essentially over for me," she said. Covelli said she's applying to about 10 jobs a week but has so far