Weekly Wonk: Oh SNAP– Shutdowns & Shifting Stability

Nov 03, 2025

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`From the Founder’s Desk`

Wonks are well aware that the longest total government shutdown continues, and is on track to become the longest period.

Late last week the courts intervened on one of the core drivers of brinksmanship: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

States are all scrambling to find workarounds to maintain SNAP for families during the shutdown.

That and any court-ordered use of contingency funding will be only a short-term solution.

This week’s deep dive looks at multiple federal nutrition programs, including SNAP, and how they’re faring amid not only the shutdown but other significant recent policy changes.

Even without the shutdown, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act fundamentally changed the structure of SNAP in ways that will change how states administer benefits.

In many ways the acute crisis of the shutdown is a magnified example of the new normal dynamics; nutrition support that will depend increasingly on state capacity and political timing, rather than federal certainty.

And this week’s snippet of our premium Wonk Briefing Room piece looks at the data on a critical question: what happens after a CPS investigation?

Senior Contributor Laura Radel digs in, showing how often the answer is... not much.

And we hope you enjoyed our first WonkCast: People Power Policy with Mary Bissell, one of the nation’s foremost advocates and leaders in child and family policy.

We’ll be releasing more of these conversations each week; let me know who you want me to talk with next.

Special thanks to Binti for their foundational sponsorship of WonkCast: People Power Policy.

Let’s get into it.

`From the Wonk Briefing Room`

Every year, millions of children are investigated by CPS—but few ever receive help.

This week’s Wonk Briefing Room excerpt features Senior Contributor Laura Radel, who digs into the data and what it reveals about how the system actually works.

The findings are stark: even among confirmed maltreatment victims, nearly half receive no services beyond the investigation itself.

As always, Laura leverages evidence to raise larger questions about the future of child welfare financing policy in this must-read brief.

So Many Investigations, So Little Service Delivery

By Laura Radel, Senior Contributor

Every year, millions of Americans call Child Protective Services (CPS) hoping a family will get help.

Researchers have estimated that 37 percent of all US children — and 53 percent of Black children — experience a CPS investigation during their childhoods.

Yet despite how pervasive CPS investigations have become, they rarely result in services to families.

Of children referred to CPS, just 11 percent received any services in 2023.

Even among children confirmed to be victims of maltreatment, nearly half receive no services beyond the investigation itself.

To read the rest of the piece, sign up for the Wonk Briefing Room here.

`Weekly Wonk Deep Dive`

The Changing Face of Nutrition Support—and What It Means for Child Welfare

As the shutdown stretches into another week, SNAP is becoming the centerpiece of tensions over its impact: 42 million people are at risk of losing access to essential food benefits.

A last-minute court order instructs the Administration to release emergency funds.

Even assuming prompt compliance with the order, the funds will only cover SNAP for a short period of time.

Yet the pressure SNAP and the families who rely on it are facing isn’t just a temporary shutdown scramble— it’s the new operating model for safety net food policy.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (PL 119-21) introduced the deepest federal SNAP cuts in history, but the dollar losses are only part of the story.

And although other major nutrition programs– including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)— have largely retained their prior funding and structures, Republican. policy proposals suggest those programs could be next on the chopping block.

For families already under financial strain, that shift isn’t abstract.

Nutrition supports are a key buffer that helps keep economic stress from becoming a crisis—and a crisis from becoming a child welfare case.

As nutrition programs are restructured, pressures will increase on the systems charged with protecting children and supporting family stability, which often fill the gaps left by other family-serving programs.

Food Support as Prevention Infrastructure

Nutrition programs don’t appear in child welfare budgets, but they reduce risks those systems manage—hunger, stress, and financial instability.

As studies have shown, when families have reliable food support they’re less likely to face the conditions that bring them to the attention of CPS.

To see the scope of their reach, consider their scale:

SNAP keeps food on the table for more than 40 million people each year, including roughly 15 million children. Consistent monthly benefits steady household budgets and reduce the pressure that can push families toward crisis.
WIC reaches about 6.7 million women, infants, and young children each month, providing nutrition, health referrals, and parenting support during the earliest—and most fragile—stages of family life.
The NSLP feeds nearly 30 million children a year, ensuring that hunger—one of the most visible red flags for neglect—is less likely to show up in classrooms.

Together, these programs form a critical line of defense against stressors that can exacerbate and drive child welfare involvement.

As their structures shift, so will the conditions that determine which families stay stable—and which don’t.

The New Nutrition Policy Landscape

Among the core nutrition programs, SNAP has already undergone major changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—the largest redesign in decades.

WIC and the NSLP remain intact for now, but the direction of policy suggests they may be next to change.

The sections below outline what’s changed for SNAP, and what may come next for WIC and NSLP.

SNAP’s Structural Shift

For decades, SNAP operated under a rare bipartisan protection.

By pairing food assistance for low-income families with farm subsidies, the Farm Bill built a compact that made SNAP politically resilient—rural and urban lawmakers needed each other’s votes.

That compact had come under partisan strain in recent years, and ruptured with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Passed through reconciliation rather than the traditional farm bill process, it introduced the largest SNAP overhaul in decades, including a 20 percent reduction in federal spending over ten years.

Estimates indicate the cuts will end or substantially reduce benefits for about 4 million people.

The most consequential shift is structural.

For the first time, states must now pay 5 to 15 percent of SNAP benefit costs, depending on their payment error rates.

Previously, the federal government covered benefits in full;states only shared administrative costs.

That change exposes state budgets to new liabilities—estimated at $600 million to $1.8 billion annually in California, and $95 million to $283 million in Louisiana. Even small states like Delaware could owe tens of millions each year.

That’s particularly significant since states have to balance their budgets. SNAP is a program whose budget is most likely to increase unexpectedly during an economic downturn.

That means states will face greater expenses right as they see declining tax revenue to fund them and uncertain borrowing costs.

Those new costs create strong incentives to tighten eligibility and reduce payment risk.

States with lower error rates will pay less, meaning the push for “accuracy” could translate into narrower access.

Some states may offset new spending by cutting other family support programs.

For families already balancing low wages, rising prices, and child care costs, those changes mean more instability—and for child welfare systems, greater risk at the front door.

WIC: Safe– For Now

WIC was spared from the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because it’s funded through annual appropriations rather than mandatory spending.

But that distinction makes it a yearly fight.

The most recent House appropriations bill would cut WIC funding, reducing participation by nearly half a million people, while the Senate bill maintains full funding.

With a shutdown underway, some state agencies have begun planning for temporary interruptions in benefits.

WIC is one of the earliest stabilizers in the family support system—providing food, nutrition guidance, and referrals during pregnancy and infancy, when financial stress can easily become a family crisis.

Continued funding uncertainty doesn’t just threaten access to formula and groceries; it undermines one of the most reliable points of early prevention in the child welfare continuum.

Are School Meals Next on the Chopping Block?

The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs have remained stable—but only for now.

Project 2025 proposals call for ending the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in high-poverty areas to serve free meals to all students, and for scaling back summer programs.

These changes would reduce the reach of the nation’s most universal prevention mechanism—one that reaches children directly, regardless of family circumstances.

If enacted, they would also increase administrative burden for schools, create gaps for children whose families have lost SNAP eligibility, and raise visible signs of food insecurity in classrooms—often the first red flags that trigger mandated reports.

What Decision Makers Need to Know

Most of the attention so far has gone to SNAP—and rightly so. It’s the largest program, and HR 1 made the deepest cuts there.

But WIC and school meals aren’t out of the woods.

Each faces its own policy crosscurrents that could weaken access or consistency, especially for families living closest to the line.

For policymakers in Congress and the states, this moment calls for a broader view.

Federal disinvestment in nutrition programs will erode support for family economic stability and create further pressures on child welfare to serve those needs as a system of last resort.

The policy debate may center on food, but the implications reach far beyond it.

What’s at stake is how we understand and sustain the basic conditions that keep families stable in the first place.

That’s it for this week.

Stay Sharp, Wonks.