Impacts of the BBB on Recipients of Public Benefits – Statewide Poverty Action Network

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the “Big Beautiful Bill” into law. The impacts of this bill will gradually go into effect over the next 5 years. This bill has wide-ranging impacts from public benefits to tax codes. The bill is designed to benefit wealthy Americans while stripping the safety net for those living in poverty. The cuts frame poverty as an individual failure instead of a systemic one, forcing families to go without and states to do more with less.

While the impacts are widespread, the deepest harm will come to two programs: SNAP and Medicaid. Overall, we expect to see the following:

States will be required to pay more of a share in order to maintain the same, and sometimes lower, benefits
Individuals will have an increased burden of requirements and “proof” to maintain eligibility for programs. This red tape will lead to many families losing access to food and medical care and will cost the state more to administer because of the time and staff needed to check for requirements. Work requirements for SNAP will start Dec. 1
Many immigrants will lose access to federal programs and turn to state-funded programs to meet their basic needs

These changes will have compounding impacts on immigrants. On July 14, HHS published a notice in the Federal Register that re-interprets the meaning of “Federal public benefit”. People with many immigration statuses will lose qualification for federal benefits (i.e. those with Temporary Protected Status, applicants for asylum status, etc.). This change is expected to disqualify ~15,000 Washingtonians who have previously used SNAP.

Poverty Action is committed to offering timely and grounded information about
changes that are coming, connecting community members most impacted with
policymakers to change the narrative and mitigate the effects of the bill, and advocating for the protection of the safety net at the state level to reduce harm.