New SNAP Rules Cut Florida Rolls Nearly 20%, Straining Food Banks Statewide

Florida’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program caseload has fallen by nearly 20 percent since Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025, according to an estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities cited by WUFT News. Nationally, participation dropped by about 5 million people, or 12 percent, meaning Florida’s decline outpaced the country’s. For a rural, coastal county like Levy, where wages lag the state average and grocery access is thinner than in metro areas, that gap matters.

What changed, exactly

The federal law expanded SNAP’s work-or-volunteer requirement from adults up to age 55 to adults up to 64. Adults 65 and older remain exempt. At the same time, the law eliminated exemptions that had covered veterans, people experiencing homelessness and young adults aging out of foster care, groups that previously did not have to meet the work requirement to keep benefits.

Florida layered its own restrictions on top of the federal changes. In April, the state Department of Children and Families barred SNAP dollars from being spent on soda, energy drinks, candy and prepared desserts. In August, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a parallel restriction on the state’s Temporary Cash Assistance program, which helps low-income residents cover food and rent, blocking TCA funds from being used for items such as tattoos and tobacco products.

None of these rules end SNAP or TCA outright. They narrow who qualifies and what benefits can buy.

The nutrition argument, and the pushback

University of Florida nutrition professor Amy Mobley told WUFT the sugary-drink restriction is “good in theory” but risks making food access harder, not diets healthier. She pointed to low-income families with infants as especially exposed, given the added cost of diapers and formula, and warned that families without nearby food pantries or fresh produce could face long-term nutritional deficiencies tied to chronic disease.

Mobley also raised a practical problem: confusion at the register. With SNAP now excluding specific categories of food, she said retailers are “still trying to navigate” what qualifies, and the added friction may deepen the stigma some recipients already feel using benefits in public.

Pressure on food banks

The strain is already visible at food banks. Stephanie Palacios, senior director of advocacy and government relations at Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, said about 131,000 Central Floridians lost SNAP eligibility after the federal law passed, a drop that collided with a federal government shutdown that delayed benefits for people who remained eligible. She called it “a perfect storm” that sent demand at partner pantries sharply higher.

Second Harvest distributes roughly 300,000 meals a day across seven Central Florida counties, serving fixed-income households and, increasingly, working families squeezed by high gas, housing and grocery prices. Palacios said the organization is now focused on educating other pantries and communities about the eligibility and purchase changes, even as it’s difficult to forecast how demand will shift as SNAP rolls continue to shrink.

Why this reaches the Nature Coast

The reporting centers on Central Florida food banks, but the underlying rules, the expanded work requirement, the removed exemptions, and the DCF and TCA purchase restrictions, apply statewide, including Levy County. Cedar Key and its neighboring communities have no comparably sized food bank network cited in this reporting, but residents relying on SNAP or TCA are subject to the same eligibility rules and the same restricted purchase list now in effect. Local food pantries and county social services offices remain the practical point of contact for residents navigating the changes.