Kayla Brown said her family of four has been getting by on about $200 a month in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since the sweeping changes made to the program’s eligibility and benefit calculations went into effect earlier this year. Before the change, she said her family received nearly $900 each month. 

“We’ve been getting by thanks to my husband,” Brown said. He works as an associate at Walmart. “We reach out to food pantries… to help on the side and then just budget as much as we can to save every penny.”

Brown is a stay-at-home mother to a 4-year-old and 7-year-old, one of whom is special needs and requires full-time care. That exempts her from the new federal work requirements, but many other Illinoisans are not exempt.

An Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson told Illinois Times that “just under” 104,000 Illinoisans lost benefits in the last few months specifically due to the expanded work requirements. That number does not include families like Brown’s who still receive benefits, albeit greatly reduced.

Brown’s family and others who still receive modest benefits are not eligible for the one-time $400 payment through the Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger (FRESH) Program announced July 30 by Gov. JB Pritzker for people who were booted off SNAP by the changed eligibility requirements. 

Illinois SNAP enrollment is at the lowest levels since the IDHS began publishing monthly data in 2011. The Office of the Governor estimated that 150,000 Illinoisans would lose benefits due to the federal changes. 

Previously, adults between age 18 and 54 without dependents under 18 had to work, volunteer or train for at least 80 hours a month. The new legislation, H.R. 1, expanded those requirements to adults between 18 and 64 without dependents under 14. It also eliminated exemptions for the work requirements for veterans, people experiencing homelessness and people between 18 and 24 who were in foster care when they turned 18.

Work requirements are a common feature of social safety net programs like SNAP, although research has consistently found such requirements do not meaningfully increase employment in most cases. A 2022 study by the Congressional Budget Office found that SNAP work requirements “have reduced benefits more than they have increased people’s earnings.” And a 2023 article in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy discovered no impact on employment from social safety net work requirements. 

The Illinois numbers parallel the study’s strong disenrollment effect. The new work requirements kicked in Feb. 1, although people rendered ineligible by the changes were given three months of benefits. The first group of people who no longer qualify for SNAP lost their benefits in May. 

And in May, IDHS data shows that another 88,000 people lost SNAP benefits in that month alone, which is nearly double the next-highest drop in month-to-month SNAP enrollment in 2026. 

The work requirements are only the most recent of the changes to SNAP made by the July 2025 budget reconciliation bill. H.R. 1 also made what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities called the “largest cut to the program in history.”

Beginning in 2028, the current funding model – in which states and the federal government split the operating costs while the federal government pays the full costs of benefits – will be replaced by varying funding structures depending on states’ rates of over- or underpaying benefits, called the error rate. Although often mistaken for fraud, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website points out that these errors are “largely unintentional.”

Illinois’ error rate increased by 3% in fiscal year 2025, but Pritzker told reporters that Illinois has successfully taken steps to reduce the rate, although he did not cite a specific number.

According to the USDA figure of 14.67%, Illinois falls into the highest category of error rates, meaning the state will have to pay 15% of the cost of benefits beginning in fiscal year 2029. A report by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget estimates that the state will owe $705 million in fiscal year 2028 unless the error rate is reduced for fiscal year 2026.

Notably, the error rate does not include rates of wrongly denying benefits altogether, which researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said “may incentivize states to take drastic measures to reduce their payment error rates quickly and cut program costs, even if it means delaying or improperly denying benefits to eligible people.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 2.4 million people will lose SNAP benefits every month. In the 22 states with available demographic data, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said 1.1 million children have lost access to SNAP, although many Republican lawmakers claimed that H.R. 1 would not impact SNAP enrollment for children and other vulnerable groups.

When Springfield resident Carey Smith went to the local IDHS office after her benefits were suddenly cut off in June, she said it was standing room only. She was told it would be a three- or four-hour wait, so she decided to try calling instead. After holding for around 30 minutes, too many people were waiting to get a spot in the queue, and she was disconnected.

Smith’s visit happened not long after thousands of Illinoisans lost their benefits.

“Every single person, I kid you not, that came to the counter was like, ‘I didn’t get my food stamps. Something is wrong. I got kicked off,’” she said.

Smith said her benefits were reinstated Aug. 14, but she had to go to the office four to six more times before that happened. She said she did not get back pay for the time she went without benefits. 

Still, Smith said she is most concerned about the community members who are directly impacted by H.R. 1’s changes.

“They’re expecting unhoused people who may not have access to basic hygiene, clean clothes and things like that to go out and get a 20-hour-a-week job or a 20-hour-a-week volunteer position,” she said. “Anyone who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth recognizes that. It’s just kicking people when they’re down.”  

Molly A. Wallace is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications.

This article appears in August 20-26, 2026.