An Illinois congressman on Thursday pressed the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Food and Nutrition Administration to provide a state-by-state assessment of the impact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are having on students’ access to free school meals nationwide.

The Republican-led OBBBA, which went into effect in July 2025, made historic cuts to SNAP and imposed new eligibility and work requirements for the federal program, said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., in a letter to USDA leadership. Illinois in particular has felt the impact of those changes, he said, as the state has seen a 16% drop in SNAP enrollment since OBBBA was enacted.

The federal SNAP cuts are also directly tied to students’ access to free meals, Krishnamoorthi said. In Illinois, for instance, between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years 47 fewer schools and 15 fewer districts participated in the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal program that helps high-poverty schools provide universal access to free school meals.

Students participating in SNAP are “directly certified” — or automatically enrolled — to receive free school meals without being required to fill out an application.

This policy can also extend to broader free meal programs, such as CEP, which allows a school or district to serve free meals to every student if at least 25% of students are directly certified through their participation in federal assistance programs like SNAP or Medicaid.

“As families lose SNAP because of new paperwork requirements rather than changes in household income, schools can fall below this threshold and lose CEP eligibility entirely, putting free meals at risk for every student who relies on them,” Krishnamoorthi said in his letter to USDA.

While citing recent data from the Food Research & Action Center, Krishnamoorthi said that Illinois was one of three states to see the largest decline nationwide in the number of schools participating in CEP during the 2025-26 school year compared to the prior year.

Read the full article about SNAP cuts impacting free school meals by Anna Merod at K-12 Dive.