Mackenzi Klemann
Indiana Capital Chronicle
Eighty-two thousand fewer Hoosiers are receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act took effect last October.
The law brought major changes to the nation’s most prominent food assistance program, commonly known as food stamps.
The results were swift: Nearly 13,000 Hoosiers lost their SNAP benefits between October and November — more than 10 times the number removed the previous month.
Another 12,500 Hoosiers were disenrolled the following month, rising to 14,000 in January and peaking at 16,000 in May. That’s a 14.5% drop since October 2025.
FSSA data shows 30,000 Hoosiers were removed from SNAP prior to the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill last year — totaling 112,500 from January 2025 through June of this year.
The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, which administers SNAP benefits, could not answer how many of those Hoosiers were removed due to ineligibility versus procedural reasons like missing or incomplete paperwork.
“There (are) a number of reasons an individual may have been removed for noncompliance, one prominent reason is failing to provide requested verification information,” said FSSA Spokesman Tyson Runkle.
Indiana’s Medicaid expansion program is also seeing thousands of Hoosiers removed from the program.
What’s changed
House Resolution 1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, imposed new restrictions on which refugees and asylum seekers are eligible for assistance through SNAP.
Able-bodied adult veterans, homeless people and young adults who have aged out of foster care, once exempt from work requirements, must now prove they are working at least 80 hours a week or lose their benefits.
The same work requirements now apply to able-bodied seniors until they turn 64.
Caretakers of dependent children are exempt until their youngest child is 14 years old — lowered from age 18.
Failure to meet work, school or volunteer hours for more than three months in a three-year period will result in benefits termination, said Emily Weikert Bryant, executive director of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry.
New applicants must now report the names and citizenship status of all household members and prove their Indiana residency.
Seniors who once qualified for simplified applications due to age or disability are now subject to more frequent check-ins and eligibility redeterminations until they turn 64.
Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 lowered the asset limit back to the federal $3,000 limit too, though households with at least one disabled person or adult over 60 can keep assets of up to $4,500.
Cost-sharing puts pressure on state
Indiana will pay a greater share to administer SNAP benefits come October, at which time the state will be on the hook for 75% of administrative costs.
But the most significant change won’t take effect until next October. If Indiana does not bring its SNAP error rate below 6%, the state will start paying for a portion of those benefits for the first time.
The minimum fiscal impact if the state does not comply: $64 million, according to Sunshine Beam, director of the Division of Family Resources within FSSA.
SNAP resources will likely be a key discussion point as lawmakers craft a new two-year state budget starting in January.
The error rate is calculated by looking at a random sample of 100 SNAP households to determine what percentage received too much or too little in benefits — not in determining eligibility.
Indiana’s error rate hit 9.77% in 2025, up slightly from the previous year, but Beam said the rate is trending down since FSSA started hiring additional workers to focus on compliance.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” she said. “Everybody is working really hard. We have so many people working on this, and the staff are taking extra thoughtful consideration and making sure we’re reviewing their cases.”
The errors are a combination of agency mistakes — missing a key number or reading a paystub incorrectly — and recipients not reporting accurate household income or other information the agency needs to calculate benefits, Beam said.
“We are held responsible for those errors as well,” she said.
FSSA reviews employment income and bank accounts to verify applicants meet income and asset limits.
At least 30 days of recent pay history are needed to determine eligibility, which may be verified through paystubs or employer statements, according to Runkle.
Quality control then reviews cases and conducts interviews with applicants before benefits are issued to minimize errors.
Are rapid changes contributing to errors?
Bryant, of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, wonders whether federal and state changes to SNAP policy are contributing to the state’s error rate.
Indiana’s 9.77% error rate for federal fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30, was calculated before the One Big Beautiful Bill took effect.
“I can’t see how that number gets any lower,” Bryant said. The policy, procedural and eligibility changes “create an atmosphere rife for making mistakes,” she said, “because you’re having to retrain everyone to different standards.”
If Indiana’s error rate rises to 10%, Bryant said, the state would owe $127 million a year just for benefits.
“That’s not what we’re seeing,” Beam said, adding, “These changes, both at the federal and at the state level, do not appear to have made the error rate worse.”
Still, Bryant said she worries what would happen should the state decide it can’t or won’t pay for benefits.
“There’s nowhere (in the law) that the state has to sign on the dotted line to say, ‘We’re going to do this,’” she said, “and it’s pretty unclear if states say we’re not going to pay the benefits cost share — what happens? Do the households in the state still get benefits? Do they get benefits minus the 10% that the state was supposed to be paying?”
