In Massachusetts, food insecurity is at crisis levels: 37% of households reported struggling to afford food in 2024, up from 34% in 2023 and nearly double the 19% reported just five years earlier. But Bay Staters aren’t alone. American families are already stretched thin — and the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” threatens to make things worse.
Nationwide, the Urban Institute projects that 22.3 million families could lose some or all of their food assistance under the bill. But they won’t be denied Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits outright. Instead, they’ll be buried under paperwork, disqualified by deadlines and overwhelmed by technicalities — barriers that make it harder, if not impossible, for families to access the benefits they legally qualify for when they need them most. What little support families receive will be harder to hold onto, just as the need has never been greater.
The Trump administration’s signature legislation expands work requirements for both SNAP and Medicaid, creating new hoops for vulnerable populations to jump through. For SNAP, the work mandate now extends to able-bodied adults ages 55 to 64 without dependent children, plus parents whose youngest child is 14 or older. These individuals must document at least 20 hours of work or job training each week — or risk losing food assistance entirely.
Consider a 58-year-old retail worker whose arthritis flares unpredictably, forcing her to miss shifts. Or a father juggling two part-time delivery jobs while his 15-year-old struggles with epilepsy, which sometimes requires him to stay home to provide care. These aren’t people avoiding work — they’re people whose lives don’t fit into neat bureaucratic boxes. One missed deadline, one lost document, one sick child could cost them the nutrition support that keeps a family fed…