Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
Vermont officials are pursuing a ban on some “non-nutritious items” for recipients of the state’s largest food assistance program.
Recipients would no longer be able to use funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called 3SquaresVT in Vermont, to purchase certain goods. Elsewhere, such restrictions have ranged from only “soft drinks” in Colorado to a stringent tax-based rule in Iowa that removed items like lemonade and many granola bars. Vermont officials say they haven’t yet settled on the specifics of their rules.
Roughly 65,000 Vermonters are enrolled in 3SquaresVT.
State leadership said in a November application for federal grant money that Gov. Phil Scott had directed his administration to seek a waiver from the U.S. government that would allow for such a rule change.
Food security advocates say such measures would diminish the food assistance program’s dignity, and that their health outcomes are unproven.
“We would ensure that folks are accessing healthier foods for themselves,” said Miranda Gray, who leads the Economic Services Division of the Vermont Department for Children and Families. The state Department of Health is supportive of the policy, Gray added.
Officials included the measure as part of a broad plan to improve the state’s health outcomes in their successful application for the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. In December, Vermont received $195 million from the program, the most funding per capita of any state.
At least 18 states, with both conservative and liberal governors, have already adopted similar food assistance rules since last year. Prior to the second Trump administration, the federal government had denied states’ requests for the waivers allowing their own SNAP restrictions, as U.S. officials weighed research highlighting the administrative burden and uncertain health benefits of such policies. In the past year, federal officials have been “very quick to support” such requests, Gray said.
The change to food assistance regulations will likely move forward next year in Vermont, after a lengthy period of public feedback, according to Gray. The rule change does not require legislative approval in Vermont, she noted.
“I know that there’s concerns from folks,” Gray said. “Let’s have a conversation.”
Food assistance advocates have been quick to challenge the proposal, arguing that the measure is both inappropriate and inefficient.
“This waiver is extremely experimental — it is not backed by research,” said Ivy Enoch, director of policy and advocacy at Hunger Free Vermont. In some states, she said, guidelines have been so vague that they result in “nonsensical” enforcement.
“What folks need is a stable, reliable program and greater financial ability to afford the basics,” she said. “They do not need a policy that assumes we don’t know how to make decisions for ourselves and our families.”
Gray framed the new policy as an expansion of existing limitations to purchasing products with benefit funds — like the restriction on alcohol.
Enoch said she’s also worried about the policy’s impact on grocery stores.
“It forces retailers to become referees at the cash register,” she said. “That’s not fair to them.”
A December memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, said infractions against new state restrictions would be enforced federally. Grocery stores that broke the rules more than once would be removed from the program, the document said.
Cheray MacFarland, director of purchasing and marketing at City Market, expressed concern over having customers’ decision-making “controlled by the government.” Such an approach, she said, is “so far from what food assistance is about.”
MacFarland said her organization is aware of the affordability issues that healthier food like produce can pose. The company started a “Food for All” program last year which provides higher discounts on fresh fruits and vegetables for customers who receive food assistance.
Enoch and Gray both referenced existing incentive programs designed to make fresh foods more available to Vermonters in need, such as the Crop Cash program run by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont.
“Investing in those programs will get us so much further than implementing this experimental policy,” Enoch said.
