Over 300,000 Illinois residents are expected to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits because of new work requirements and red tape from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
A new report from the Center for American Progress says that could also impact access to free school meals.
“Students who are enrolled in SNAP and Medicaid, they can be directly certified for free school meals,” said the report’s co-author Paige Shoemaker Demio. “Basically, a box is checked that says they are in SNAP. They automatically get free meals. They don't have to go through a household application process, which can have a lot of barriers.”
So, if their family loses SNAP benefits, they would no longer be directly certified.
Students can qualify for free meals in a few ways, including through the Community Eligibility Provision. If more than 25% of a school is directly certified through SNAP, the whole school gets free meals. But if families lose SNAP, Shoemaker Demio says schools could fall off that program.
She says last year’s law shifts a lot of SNAP costs onto states, so if budgets get tight, they might restrict eligibility further.
The report also details how much it would cost a family of two in Illinois every year if they had to pay for school lunch, when the median price is $3.25.
“The average length of the school year is 180 school days," said Shoemaker Demio, "so $3.25 times 180 school days times two kids is how we arrive at that $1,170 (per year).”
She says there are over one million Illinois students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and they expect to see SNAP cuts lead to lower rates of free school meal participation this next school year.
Last year’s One Big Bill Beautiful Bill Act also ended the SNAP-ED program that provided nutrition education to over one million students across the country.
