Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
New federal work requirements limiting eligibility for the nation’s largest food assistance program will take effect for many in Vermont on March 1.
Roughly 3,000 people may lose benefits on that day, according to Ivy Enoch, director of policy and advocacy at Hunger Free Vermont, a food security nonprofit. About half of them are people experiencing homelessness, she added, citing data from the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
“This is a crucial moment,” Enoch said in an interview earlier this month.
The main “work rule” limiting eligibility for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, expanded last year in a number of respects — including raising its upper age threshold and eliminating exemptions for potentially vulnerable groups. The shift comes as part of a raft of changes to the program in last July’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which congressional Republicans said would help combat wasteful spending on such services.
SNAP, called 3SquaresVT in Vermont, serves roughly 65,000 people statewide. Data on rates of employment vary widely, with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimating that about 30% of Vermont recipients were members of working families, and the Food Research and Action Center reporting that between 2019 and 2023 an average of 72% of SNAP households included a member who was working.
Adults up to age 64 (increased from 54 in this rule’s previous language) will now have to prove they are working, volunteering or training the requisite 80 hours per month to receive food stamps. This requirement will also be newly imposed on unhoused people, and with less widespread effects on veterans and former foster care charges.
“If you are experiencing homelessness, it is extremely difficult to report information,” Enoch said. “We are deeply concerned.”
The work exemption for households with children was narrowed — only guardians with children under 14, rather than 18, will now qualify. Other exemptions — like pregnancy — remain unchanged.
The state of Vermont used its discretion to delay this change to eligibility requirements, and other rules governing SNAP have deferred the new policy’s full impact until March, Enoch said.
According to Enoch, many people who might otherwise see benefits dry up in March may be eligible for another, broader exception: the “personal barrier” rule. In certain cases, someone can be deemed unable to work because of other circumstances in their life, like a lack of access to transportation. But in order to qualify, a physician or other service provider has to submit the request form on behalf of their client.
“This is not a work requirement,” Enoch said of the new expansions to the work rule. “This is a paperwork requirement.”
Julia Burgess, 35, enrolled in 3SquaresVT last year amid a professional transition that made it hard to cover the cost of groceries. The administrative burden of staying in the program has been “exhausting,” she said — the paperwork and long phone conversations have sometimes made it difficult to do her job as a private therapist.
In fact, she’s been without benefits for several months while she works out how to report a new level of income. She’s been grateful for the help she’s received from a caseworker at Vermont Foodbank, who has assisted with the trickier parts of the paperwork.
“Without supports like that, more and more Vermonters are gonna go hungry,” Burgess said. “These programs are almost designed to keep people out.”
Organizations like the Foodbank and the state’s community action agencies have been reaching out to clients wherever possible to warn them of the incoming changes, and assist them however possible, Enoch said.
One central ask from food assistance advocates to legislators this session has been increased funding for “benefit assisters,” a set of new staff positions at various service organizations dedicated to helping people navigate the increasingly complex paperwork for SNAP and Medicaid.
“We need to make sure that (the) message is actually being received by the folks who need it,” Enoch said.
