by: Che Gadison

(Plain Press October 2025) Through the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (named by Donald Trump), there has been an attack on people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. In urban counties in Ohio almost 50% of those currently receiving SNAP benefits can expect to see significant cuts. Also, the number of recipients who must work to receive SNAP benefits (those with children and older adults) have also increased. Approximately 190,000 residents in Cuyahoga County receive tax benefits.

In addition, there is a deliberate effort by the federal government to hurt the ability of low-income residents to receive SNAP benefits by negative impacting the capacity of states and counties to administer the program and limiting their ability to get SNAP benefits to their residents.

This is done primarily by increasing administrative requirements while reducing reimbursements so that it makes it increasingly more difficult for SNAP eligible recipients to receive benefits. A keyway of doing this is by penalizing states and counties who make administrative errors. The federal government is demanding that states keep their individual error rate at 6% or below. 

These errors could include not having such things as current accurate income, correct household composition, the accurate current job of a recipient, accurate current debts, and correct dollar amounts when determining income.

Keeping this error rate low is a very difficult goal to achieve as most states are operating with an error rate of 7-10%.  Currently, Ohio’s error rate is between 7-9% which would mean that the cost to the state would be $321 million. This would make it much more difficult for the counties to serve SNAP eligible recipients. Although Ohio’s error rate has been consistently below the national average, the state’s goal is to be at 6% or lower.

On September 8, 2025, Cuyahoga County hosted a panel discussion about Medicaid/ SNAP changes. County staff voiced their concerns that the error rate is setting states up to fail, and the result for Ohio, and other states who cannot keep the error rate under 6%, will be the reduction of SNAP benefits.

Cuyahoga county benefit recipients are being asked to do the following three (3) things to assist the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services in keeping the SNAP error rate below 6% and ensure that the SNAP program continue for all Ohioans by: accurately report income and household changes; completing new applications and redetermination applications on time and include any documents required to complete the application or redetermination process; and responding to requests for information and asking questions if you are unsure what steps are needed to complete the application or redetermination process.

SNAP recipients can call the Cuyahoga County Department of Jobs and Family Services at 844-640-6446 with any questions about applying for benefits or notices you have received regarding your benefits or visit your local ODJFS office. People should be patient and stay on the line as long as they can because being put on hold is likely.