Five eastern Kentucky counties, Elliott, Lewis, Magoffin, Martin and Wolfe, have federal permission to hold off SNAP’s three-month time limit until November 30. The limit normally cuts off adults who go three months in a 36-month period without working or training 80 hours a month. The Food and Nutrition Service approved the waiver in a letter dated February 9, 2026, and no Kentucky renewal has been posted.
Five counties that cleared the 10 percent bar
Ronald Ward, acting associate administrator for SNAP at the Food and Nutrition Service, signed the letter approving Kentucky’s request to waive the time limit in the five counties. The waiver’s implementation date is December 1, 2025. Kentucky based its request on January through March 2025 unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The legal basis is section 6(o) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 and 7 CFR 273.24(f), which let USDA waive the time limit for an area with unemployment over 10 percent. The letter says the five counties had rates of at least 10.6 percent in the period Kentucky cited. FNS accepted the request on that showing…