President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy law fundamentally alters how food stamps are funded, leaving states to bear some of the cost for the first time in six decades.
The move all but ensures that states across the country will adopt a patchwork of policies for a crucial aspect of the social safety net. Whether they can find the money in their budgets — estimated, in some cases, to surpass a billion dollars — will have wide-ranging, and likely uneven, consequences for some 42 million people who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.