Local communities are bracing for the negative effect new work requirements will have on food security for hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans.
As part of the statewide Save Our SNAP (SOS) Coalition, United Way Quad Cities and River Bend Food Bank are urging the Illinois General Assembly to support gap benefits for Illinois residents who need it the most.
SB3277 and HB4730 would create an emergency assistance fund to provide a one-time payment to the nearly 250,000 Illinoisans at risk of losing benefits. Among this group, an estimated 120,000 Illinois residents lost their SNAP benefits on May 1st.
“For every meal River Bend Food Bank serves, SNAP provides 9 additional meals,” said Jenny Colvin, vice president for River Bend Food Bank. “We know that the administrative burdens put in place by H.R. 1 will lead to the loss of benefits for individuals who are eligible or exempt. Illinois legislators have a chance to prioritize food security for these individuals during the coming budget debates in Springfield.”
H.R 1 (passed last July) requires individuals to fulfill at least 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, or job training to remain eligible for SNAP benefits unless they qualify for exemptions like having a dependent under the age of 14, are medically unable to work, and more.
H.R. 1’s new work requirements went into effect Feb. 1, 2026. Recipients who can’t meet the requirements could only receive up to three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period. May was the first month that some households will lose those benefits.
And as of April 1, the only immigrants who can receive SNAP benefits are lawful permanent residents, certain immigrants from Cuba and Haiti, and people living in the U.S. under a Compact of Free Association, a work and trade agreement between the U.S. and The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. This removes eligibility from refugees, asylum-seekers, certain trafficking and domestic violence survivors, and other location-specific groups of immigrants.
Save Our SNAP, a new Illinois-based coalition of more than 85 religious and social groups, food-assistance providers and health and human services organizations, rallied on April 14, at the Illinois Capitol in Springfield to ask lawmakers to support three bills that would provide support to those who’ve lost access to their benefits.
“We are lucky to have the support of local legislators Rep. Gregg Johnson and Sen. Mike Halpin in the fight for food security,” said Ryan Sempf, chief impact officer at United Way Quad Cities, who was at that April rally.
“We see food as a basic need, and without it we cannot hope to reach the Community’s Rise United 2030 goals of improved 3rd grade reading, living wage attainment, or regular health care access. With budget projections outpacing previous estimates, now is the time for the General Assembly to take a stand and protect Illinoisans who are in the greatest need.”
41 million+ rely on SNAP
Over 41 million Americans, including 2 million in Illinois, rely on SNAP to help pay for food and groceries when times are tough. Congress last summer passed a budget bill that includes devastating cuts and changes to SNAP, according to the coalition website, saveoursnap.org.
The $200-billion cut from SNAP will ripple across entire sectors, affecting families, food banks, farmers, grocers, schools, and local governments.
Save Our SNAP is a statewide coalition of organizations united to protect and strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Illinois. The unprecedented attacks to SNAP by the federal government will lead to catastrophic levels of hunger in communities, the group says.
Collective action can help mitigate harm and build a brighter future where all Illinois neighbors have the food they need to thrive.
“Basically, there was a need identified that we needed to work with the legislature in Springfield to find ways to support families that are likely going to lose benefits,” Sempf (who’s been in his position since last December) said Monday morning, May 11. “We know that about 250,000 Illinois residents are at risk of losing benefits because of some of these changes.”
From February to May was that initial period where people had to meet those requirements in order to retain benefits, he noted. “There are a number of exemptions that come along with that as well. So that was the time period where people were able to work through the process to claim those exemptions,” Sempf said.
The SOS Coalition has “really spearheaded the effort to introduce legislation to try and support those families that are likely to face food insecurity as a result of some of those policy changes,” he said. “The thing that we are leaning into the most right now is the FRESH benefit, which would create an emergency assistance fund that provides a one-time payment, roughly three months of the average SNAP benefit to Illinoisans that are at risk or have lost benefits due to those new work requirements.
"So really, our work with the legislature is focused on how do we make sure that individuals who are at risk of losing benefits have a stopgap or a last resort if that does happen.”
United Way of the QC is focused on its Rise United 2030 goals of improving 3rd-grade reading, the number of people earning a living wage, and the number of people accessing routine healthcare, Sempf said.
“We look at food benefits as a really a basic need that has to be met before you can do any of those other things. You know, how can you focus on reading and writing and schooling when you're there with an empty stomach?” he said. “We think that this is a really important initiative for our Illinois families to make sure that we are protecting them and helping the rest of the community really continue to pursue those long-term strategic goals.”
Looking for FRESH relief
The proposed FRESH (Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger) legislation would create an emergency assistance fund to provide a one-time payment to Illinois residents who lose SNAP because of the new requirements. This emergency support equals to about three months of the average SNAP benefit – roughly $600 – to help families stay afloat while they navigate the changes, Colvin of the food bank noted Monday.
“This is not a permanent replacement for SNAP. It is a short-term bridge to prevent families from falling immediately into crisis,” she said.
If FRESH is passed and funded, applications would be made available online and at local Family and Community Resource Centers beginning the first month after the law takes effect. Eligible households would receive a one-time emergency payment through an EBT card. The exact timing would depend on state implementation, so it would not necessarily be immediate the day the bill passes – but the goal is clearly to provide emergency support quickly to people who have lost benefits, she said.
A second bill -- Food for Lawfully Present Immigrants (HB4831 / SB3167) – would expand access to an existing state-funded food assistance program, ensuring that lawfully present immigrants—such as victims of trafficking, refugees and asylees—can still access food support if they lose SNAP.
Covering a three-month benefit gives people the opportunity to go and pursue work, whether it's part-time, volunteer or start to attain training that would make someone eligible for SNAP, Sempf said.
“We know that when requirements like this go into place, people lose benefits not necessarily because they don't qualify for exemptions, but because the process is difficult,” he said.
“And so those three months of stopgap benefits also provide an opportunity for families to realize, oh, we are about to lose our access to healthy foods. We need to work with a case manager with the state to identify if we do have an exemption and qualify for SNAP benefits. So really it is an opportunity for folks to take a closer look and make sure that they've gone through the process fully.
“We also are working on legislation to create a working group. It's a time-limited working group through the state to whose goal is to address some of these shortcomings in the long-term,” Sempf said. “Policymakers, folks from the administration, folks from the community, communities that are impacted, being able to look at the short-term impacts that we're seeing right now that would allow the state to plan more long-term for how they can protect food security for Illinois residents.”
“We’re looking for the ability to protect people for the short-term right now, but we're also thinking about the long-term and how the state can play a role in planning to avoid some of these worst outcomes,” he added.
Sempf said the QC area is “really lucky to have very active and
engaged members of the General Assembly here.”
“Representative Gregg Johnson and Senator Mike Halpin are both co-sponsors on that legislation and are supportive of it. I think right now, as we're in budget season, it's really just making sure that all our legislators across the state see this as a priority when they're making the state budget,” Sempf said. “It's really a question of, do we value and think that protecting access to food and food security for Illinois residents is a priority?
"Budgets are largely a tell of what your priorities are. And so we hope that the state will see protecting access to food as a priority for residents," he said.
Four-year high in food insecurity
River Bend is already experiencing a four-year high with a food insecurity rate of 13.7% in its 23-county service area in western Illinois and eastern Iowa.
“Food insecurity are people who cannot have reliable access to healthy, nutritious food,” Colvin said. “There's a lot of rural counties in Illinois that we serve. And when we talk about food insecurity and food deserts, a food desert is defined as a place with a radius of about nine miles that does not have access to a local retailer or any food bank programming. So the impact that these SNAP cuts, these SNAP changes could make to Illinoisans – SNAP is the most effective tool we have to fight hunger.
“In a month, that provides more than what River Bend provides in an entire year,” she added. “And so when we talk about our rural counties, there's a real risk of those rural grocers that are the one-stop between turning a community into a food desert. There's a real risk of them having to close down because that generation of funds are not going to be happening at those grocery stores.
“And something that I think a lot of people don't realize is that most people in our rural communities that are food insecure, that is a higher statistic than of urban areas,” Colvin said. “It's going to affect people who are already relying on SNAP, but it's also going to affect all of our communities because of that.”
If approved, once the emergency Illinois assistance runs out, what will happen from the food bank perspective is “our lines will get longer, our resources that are already strained are going to continue to get strained,” she said. “And unfortunately this, what's coming is not something we can just fundraise our way out of and raise more funds and resources.
“Because like I said earlier, the impact that SNAP provides is what River Bend can do compared to what the SNAP program provides is very, very small,” Colvin said.
The May 1 work requirement “does not necessarily mean all of those individuals are unwilling to work or no longer need food assistance,” she said. “In many cases, people may have lost benefits because they did not meet the new reporting requirements, did not know about the changes, could not navigate the paperwork, or may actually qualify for an exemption but were not able to document it in time.”
On average, as an organization, River Bend distributes 16.5 million meals per year or 1.475 million meals per month.
The SNAP program (formerly called food stamps) provides an average of $6 per day for nearly 42 million people, roughly 40 percent of whom are children.
SNAP provides 12 million meals per month in the River Bend service area. That is a gap that the food bank or any other organization cannot fill. Approximately 150,000 individuals rely on SNAP in the River Bend service area.
Legislation is slated to cut federal SNAP benefits in October 2026 due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1). Parents and older adults must meet stricter work requirements under the new law. Estimates show 90,000 to 250,000 legal immigrants will lose access to SNAP benefits under the bill.
In October, states will have to provide a higher percentage (compared to federal funding) to be able to keep the SNAP program, Colvin said. “So they can choose to either find money in the budget to pay for it or they can opt out of the program.
"And of course, we are hoping that they choose to opt into the program,” she said, noting that would cost $800 million a year in Illinois.
Eighteen of the 23 counties that River Bend serves are in Illinois.
The work requirements change raises the upper age limit from 54 to 64, so that means that adults ages 55 to 64 who were previously exempt from this rule now must meet the requirements of 80 hours of work or approved activities per month to be able to keep those benefits, Colvin said.
In a “fact vs. fiction” page on the SOS coalition site, they say that most people on SNAP who can work, do work.
- 55% of SNAP households with children have earned income (and nearly 28% of all SNAP households have earned income).
- 79% of SNAP households include a child, an older adult, or a non-elderly person with a disability – meaning most participants are not expected to work.
- Only 12% of SNAP households include a non-working adult with no children and no disabling condition (a population sometimes referred to as Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents)
Beyond helping families make ends meet during periods of instability, SNAP dollars help grow the local economy. Data from the USDA shows that every $1 in benefits drives roughly $1.50 to $1.80 in economic activity. In the Quad Cities, that means every purchase made with SNAP, whether at a neighborhood grocery store or a local farmers market, helps sustain small businesses, support jobs and keep money here in the community.
For more information on Save Our SNAP, click HERE.
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