Cuts are coming to California! Imagine having to choose between groceries, rent, or a doctor’s visit. For millions of families across the U.S., especially in California, that could soon be the reality. If you or someone you know depends on programs like SNAP or CalFresh to help put food on the table, major changes are coming — and they could make things a lot harder. A new federal law is slashing billions from food assistance over the next decade, and the impact will hit some communities much harder than others. So, what’s actually changing? Who’s most affected by these cuts? And what could this mean for everyday people across California and beyond?
A major shake-up to food assistance
The U.S. government is making a major cut to a program that helps millions of people put food on the table. It’s called SNAP (you might know it as CalFresh if you’re in California), and it’s a lifeline for families who don’t always have enough money to cover their basic food needs.
Now, a new federal law is slashing $186 billion from this program over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It’s one of the biggest cutbacks in recent memory — and the effects could be especially serious for California.
What is CalFresh?
For those who don’t know what CalFresh is, here’s what you need to know: it’s a help provided to many people so that they can buy food. In the state of California, about 5 million citizens benefited from this aid between 2023 and 2024. That’s a lot! Most of these people are normal people with difficult lives such as families with children, hard-workers, and elderly people who wouldn’t be able to buy food if it wasn’t for CalFresh. However, this situation might change and the aid these people receive will get harder to get.
Who will be affected the most?
A study from UCLA shows that Latino families will be the hardest hit by these cuts. In California, most of the people who get CalFresh are Latino — about 55%. They also have a harder time getting enough food to eat.
In 2023, almost half of the adults in California said they didn’t have enough food, and Latino families were the most affected. If this help gets cut, many of them could have an even harder time, having to choose between buying food, paying rent, or getting medicine.
Getting help just got tougher
Besides taking money away from the program, the new law includes tougher rules. For example, if a state like California makes payment errors and those errors go over 6%, the state will have to pay part of the money that the federal government used to cover. This could make California spend more of its own money to keep helping people.
That’s a problem because California has a very large program, and many of its residents depend on CalFresh. If the state has to pay more, maybe it won’t be able to help as many people as before.
Agricultural areas will suffer more
In the places where fruits and vegetables are grown, like the Central Valley and Imperial County, many people depend on CalFresh too. In some of those areas, up to 90% of the people who receive CalFresh are Latino. Many of them work in the fields, but even so they don’t earn enough money to live comfortably.
The cuts to the SNAP program could cause more food insecurity in these areas, which is worrying because these people are essential for California’s food supply.
What else could happen?
Experts say that not only in California will the effects be felt. In other states, like Alabama or Mississippi, other poor communities, like low-income white people, can also be very affected by the new rules, like having to work more hours or going through more checks to keep getting help.
What’s coming in the future
The changes won’t happen all at once. They will take place little by little over the next few years. But experts believe these cuts could cause many problems: more people without enough food, more sickness because of poor nutrition, more poverty, and more people becoming homeless.
The director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, Arturo Vargas Bustamante, said that taking away this help would force many families to make very difficult decisions: buy food, pay rent, or go to the doctor? So, basic needs will slowly be taken from American citizens, what do you think of that?