Food distributors operating in Fairfax County say newly approved cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits could have a devastating impact on a region already struggling with food insecurity.
President Donald Trump’s recent federal tax bill includes historic cuts to safety net programs like SNAP, the Washington Post reported.
In addition to imposing more stringent work requirements for SNAP recipients, the legislation will require most states to fund SNAP benefit costs previously covered by the federal government, starting in 2027. One analysis of the Senate bill passed by Congress and signed by Trump on July 4 estimates that 22.3 million families nationwide will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits as a result.
Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of Capital Area Food Bank, told FFXnow that the region already has high levels of food insecurity — around 37% of households — and the SNAP benefit cuts will make that situation even worse.
“The recently passed federal tax and spending bill contains multiple changes to SNAP that will make it even harder for vulnerable families, children, and seniors to get the food they need,” Muthiah said. “Changes in that new law will, among other provisions, expand the number of individuals who are subject to work requirements (and the associated paperwork) in order to receive food assistance, as well as require states to pay a portion of the benefit cost for the first time in that program’s history.”
Muthiah said early assessments gave some idea of the scale of the impact.
“Based on early assessments of state-level data, we expect that nearly 50,000 families in our service region will lose an average of $171 per month — or a loss of roughly 40 meals per month,” Muthiah said. “While we are planning to ramp up our existing food distribution, state-level advocacy efforts, and partnerships to support long-term financial stability for vulnerable families, we know that we cannot fully fill this gap alone.”
Capital Area Food Bank is the largest food assistance organization in the D.C. region, operating distribution facilities in the District and Newington.
Deb Haynes, the executive director of the Merrifield-based nonprofit Food for Others, said many regional food pantries started seeing more demand after Covid-era benefits were scaled back in 2023.
“In early 2023, SNAP benefits rolled back to pre-Covid levels and utilization of our food pantry jumped 31% over the previous year, indicating an immediate and sharp increase in food insecurity,” Haynes said. “We expect a similar impact as Virginia implements the [One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s] multiple changes to SNAP.”
Haynes said Food for Others is bracing for another increase in residents needing help over the next 12 months.
“In the last twelve months, families have visited our pantry over 49,000 times,” Haynes said. “We are bracing for upwards of 60,000 visits in the next twelve months, and that is only one of our programs.”
Haynes said local food pantries are also hit with the double whammy of reduced funding and eligibility changes for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Food Assistance Program making it harder for local food providers to find food supplies:
At the same time, changes to the benefit levels for the USDA’s The Emergency Food Assistance Program will reduce our neighbor’s eligibility for that program too. Together, these changes will increase the number of our neighbors experiencing food insecurity while simultaneously forcing us to replace food previously supplied by the USDA for free. We are working with our partners at the Capital Area Food Bank to increase the amount of food we rescue from partner grocery stores (currently 39% of the food we distribute is rescued and 20% is from the USDA), but over the next year as all the various federal changes are implemented, we expect to see strain across all aspects of the emergency food network. Given that the capital region is also experiencing disproportionate federal impact on job losses and the local economy, hunger is going to be a crisis in Northern Virginia.
Haynes and Muthiah both said that food pantries are going to need community support to meet the increasing demand.
“We, and all our partners in the emergency food network, need the support of the community to meet this need,” Haynes said.
The Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services has an online map showing emergency food distribution sites across the county, and it provides free meals to all children enrolled in its summer camp and teen programs.
Fairfax County Public Schools is also providing meals without charge at several schools throughout the summer, and Capital Area Food Bank’s Free Summer Meals for Kids program includes multiple sites in Fairfax County.
