Food Banks and Pantries Warn About “Catastrophic” Effects of Trump’s Policy Bill

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A massive tax break and spending cuts bill that passed the U.S. Senate contains provisions that would be “catastrophic” to food assistance programs, says Man-Yee Lee, the director of communications for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it is officially called, is awaiting approval by the House of Representatives. It would expand work requirements for most adults in order to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The bill would also shift some of the program costs from the federal government to the states. The Senate action required Vice President J.D. Vance to cast a tie-breaking vote, with all Democratic senators and three Republicans voting against it.

In May, 2025, over 1.9 million Illinoisans received SNAP benefits – which help people in need purchase food – according to the Illinois Department of Human Services. More than 891,000 of those recipients are Cook County residents. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s office estimates that up to 427,000 Illinois residents would lose SNAP benefits under the new work requirements.

“People are working and they just are not making a living wage where they can afford to feed their kids and their families,” says Pastor Sandy Gillespie of Chosen Bethel Family Ministries Bread of Life Food Pantry in Englewood. Her pantry serves around 350 people on average per week during two distribution periods. The food is supplied by the Greater Chicago Food Depository as well as through a food rescue program in partnership with retailers like Mariano’s, Jewel, and Target.

Gillespie estimates that around a third of the clients her food pantry serves are seniors. In the new bill, “able-bodied” Americans between 60 and 64 will be required to meet work requirements, losing benefits if they do not document that they are working at least 20 hours per week or prove that they qualify for an exemption. Older clients “have to decide between medicine and food,” Gillespie says. “I have seen them and talked them through making those types of choices.”

Lee notes that the congressional bill also includes cuts to Medicaid in the form of work requirements and restrictions on how states finance health care coverage under the program for low-income Americans. “You can’t look at this in a vacuum,” she says, noting that many of the people who are SNAP participants are also on Medicaid, “so it would be a double whammy if you cut both.”

The bill also expands work requirements to parents with children over the age of 14, and takes away exemptions from work requirements from veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and others. The Food Depository’s Lee says work requirements are “ineffective” because “a lot of SNAP participants have unpredictable work hours or fluctuating work hours or they’re in a profession where there’s really high job turnover,” citing as an example a substitute teacher who struggles to satisfy a work requirement in the summer when regular school is not in session. A recent review of academic literature concluded that work requirements do not increase employment and decrease participation in SNAP, in part due to bureaucratic complexity and administrative burdens that prevent even those eligible from receiving benefits.

The congressional bill also shifts some of the costs of administering SNAP benefits from the federal government to the states. Governor Pritzker’s office estimates that Illinois could take on more than $1.2 billion in additional costs annually. Pritzker signed an open letter with all other Democratic governors opposing the shift, and Republicans from red states like West Virginia and Alabama have also expressed concerns over the burden, while the essential vote of Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was won in part by easing the burden of SNAP cuts in her state.

Gillespie suggests that, if states have to take up more of the costs of SNAP, “something else is going to get cut along the way and it’s all going to flow downstream.”

Organizations like the Food Depository have already been navigating funding pauses and program closures under cuts instituted by the Trump Administration, and are expecting to receive less food from the government this year, according to Lee.

The Food Depository estimates that one in five households in the Chicago area currently faces food insecurity. They have stepped up fundraising efforts, but “we can’t be expected to solve hunger alone,” says Lee. “We really do need the support of the government.” The Food Depository partners with 850 sites in the Chicago area to distribute food and served a record 2.4 million households in 2024, a 13% increase from the previous year and a 64% increase from 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still drastically affecting households.

“It really peaked during the pandemic and then we just simply haven’t seen those numbers come down,” says Lee.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that an earlier version of the bill would cut federal spending on SNAP by $285.7 billion over ten years.

If the congressional bill becomes law, Gillespie says, “Those of us here on the front line, boots on the ground, we’re going to have to try to find a way to pick up the slack. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how we can do that.”

Watch: Chicago Tonight: Black Voices on "How Cuts to SNAP, Medicaid Could Impact Illinois"

This story has been updated to remove a preliminary estimate of the number of Illinois residents who would lose SNAP benefits.