More than 110,000 North Carolina residents have lost food assistance in past year

More than 110,000 North Carolinian beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have fallen from enrollment since September 2025, part of a nationwide drop-off of over 4.5 million Americans between July 2025 and April 2026, according to tracking by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

The declines trace back to the 2025 budget law, which extended SNAP’s work requirements to people aged from 18 to 64, up from 18 to 54, and stripped away exemptions that had previously protected veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults aging out of foster care. 

Recipients now have to log 80 hours a month of paid work, volunteer work, or job training to keep their benefits. Combined with a sluggish labor market, that mandate leaves many of the program’s most vulnerable users at risk: Those who can’t meet the requirement can see their benefits cut to just three months in three years or lose them entirely.

Rodney McGill is the founder and executive director of the Charlotte-based nonprofit Save Our Children Movement. Asked what will happen when federal funding of SNAP dries up, McGill told the North Carolina Independent: “I can see where it’s going to have a detrimental effect. But however, the biggest question is always with me is, what solution are we working with?”

“If the county has to pay for the new administrative charges that the federal government is not taking on, the county is going to have to pull back, and when they pull back, it’s going to be on social services a lot,” he said. 

McGill said one solution is for the money the county does have to be funneled to the largest food-providing organizations with the greatest amount of infrastructure.  

“There’s already large food providers like Nourish Up, and you already have an organization like Feed Charlotte, two organizations that work with us and help us out, and many others,” he said, explaining that instead of 25 smaller organizations all fighting for funding, larger organizations are better equipped to fill the need for the community and ensure there won’t be gaps in feeding those in need. 

“You’re going to have to look towards the bigger ones because the bigger ones already got built-in capacity, buildings, warehouses, and doing these things on a larger scale, so you got to build them up so that they can supply you,” he said. “At the end, when it’s over, what do we want to say we did proactively instead of by hindsight?”

SNAP was originally called the Food Stamp Program when it became a permanent federal program with President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Food Stamp Act of 1964. The program  was one of the flagship measures of his “War on Poverty” agenda. It was renamed SNAP in 2008.

Starting Oct. 1, the federal government will begin reducing the matching funds it pays states tor run the SNAP program from 50% down to 25%, meaning North Carolina will have to cover 75% of administrative costs. 

Sen. Caleb Theodros, who represents state Senate District 41 in Mecklenburg, said that the federal government’s reduction in funding for SNA is something that has never been done before. 

“SNAP is a federal commitment,” Theodros said. “It’s there to make sure Americans don’t go hungry. The federal government — they set the core rules. They’ve historically shared the cost of administering that commitment.”

Over 1.4 million people in North Carolina received SNAP benefits as of May 2025, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Services.. 

“Historically, the federal government has paid for this. So you can’t keep making decisions in Washington and letting the states and the counties and the local taxpayers and just kind of telling them to figure it out. I think it’s more of a political perspective for him [President Donald Trump] to suggest that everyone should do more aside from himself, more than it is this well-thought-out policy of states’ rights and states’ responsibilities,” Theodros said. 

McGill said in his experience, economic pressures can lead to public safety issues. 

“I tell people, you know, sometimes by somebody just getting a meal that you paid a penny for, three pennies for this entire year, you done stopped people from jumping through your window,” he said. “Because the effects of anything that affects people’s pockets, anything that causes people to feel frustration — and we’re talking about working people. We’re not talking about people sitting around cleaning their guns, looking for some trouble to get into. We’re talking about family people, people who — this is what they decide to do — so it’s always going to be more chances for more things on the negative side to happen when they’re already negative things. It’s like a match hits some leaves. It’s just setting everything on fire because it’s spread.”