Congress worked to convince the public that H.R. 1 should be passed to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. What it has accomplished in reality is cutting kids, seniors, and eligible families off of a program that provides vital food assistance to individuals and families across our state.
As the cost of groceries continues to climb, thousands of Nebraskans are being kicked off SNAP.
When H.R. 1, otherwise known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, was signed into law on July 4, 2025, the federal Office of Management and Budget anticipated significant drops in SNAP participation across the country to pay for the $187B in SNAP cuts required by the law. Eligibility, additional work requirements, and other changes were anticipated to contribute to the losses.
Now, one year later, Nebraska SNAP participation losses total over 25,000 people, or almost 17% of our overall caseload (according to ACCESSNebraska reports). Press has recently covered the drop as well.
New demographic data puts those losses into perspective. An open records request (ORR) fulfilled by DHHS with active case1 data shows demographic realities of new federal requirements around age, citizenship, gender, and race. Total losses in active cases are much higher than reported ACCESSNebraska participation numbers at 28,287 individuals.
HR1 SNAP Losses by Age:
| AGE | Individuals lost since July 2025 | Percent change since July 2025 | Percent of total losses (out of 28,287 individuals) |
| 18-49 | 8,070 | -15.1% | 28.5% |
| 50-59 | 4,447 | -37.6% | 15.7% |
| 60 and Over | 6,130 | -28.4% | 21.7% |
| Under 18 | 9,640 | -14.9% | 34.1% |
What’s most shocking here is the number of children ages 0-18 that have been impacted by cuts. Children make up the highest whole number (9,650) and largest portion of total losses (34.1%). This is likely happening as parents or caretakers lose eligibility or drop off because of new requirements they are unable to meet.
Also noteworthy is that older adults aged 50-59 and seniors aged 60+ make up 36% of all overall losses. The remaining losses are from individuals ages 18-49.
In summary, over 50% of all SNAP losses since HR1 passed have been children and seniors. Because of H.R. 1, these vulnerable groups are now being asked to survive without help from SNAP to offset increasing food costs.
HR1 SNAP Losses by Citizenship:
| SELECTED TYPE2 | Individuals lost since July 2025 | Percent change since July 2025 | Percent of total losses (out of 28,287 individuals) |
| Refugee | 35 | -44.9% | 0.1% |
| Lawful Permanent Resident | 581 | -20.4% | 2.1% |
| Iraq/Afghan Special Immigrant Sec.101(a)(27) | 404 | -30.1% | 1.4% |
| Ukrainian Humanitarian Parolee | 102 | -94.4% | 0.4% |
| COFA Citizen | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cuban-Haitian Entrant-Section 207 | 294 | -15.6% | 1.0% |
| US Citizen | 24564 | -17.4% | 86.8% |
Even before HR1, the majority of immigrant community members were not eligible for SNAP and other federal assistance programs, despite the fact that, in Nebraska alone, they annually pay $1.6 billion in taxes to fund these programs.3 HR1 eliminated eligibility for refugees, asylees, and people holding humanitarian visas. Given that immigrant community members were largely ineligible for SNAP, it is actually US citizens that make up the majority of SNAP losses; 86% of the total losses are US citizens at 24,564 individuals. Total non-citizen losses, on the other hand, are 3,713, or 14.2%.
Within the immigrant community, the programs experiencing the greatest losses were refugees at 1,902 individuals, Lawful Permanent Residents at 581, Iraq/Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa holders (such as those who helped translate for the US government during wartime) at 404, and Ukrainian humanitarian parolees at 102.
Even people who should still be eligible for SNAP, even after the immigration status changes made by H.R. 1, have experienced major reductions in SNAP access. Lawful permanent residents, COFA citizens, and Cuban/Haitian entrants are all immigration programs that remained SNAP eligible under HR1 but have disproportionately lost participation.
HR1 SNAP Losses by Race:
RACE | Individuals lost since July 2025 | Percent change since July 2025 | Percent of total losses (out of 28,287 individuals) |
| American Indian | 3 | -4.8% | 0.01% |
| Asian | 15 | -17.9% | 0.05% |
| Black/African American | 65 | -10.2% | 0.23% |
| Other/Unknown | 8234 | -14.8% | 29.11% |
| Pacific Islander | 69 | -12.0% | 0.24% |
| White | 19901 | -21.0% | 70.35% |
Nearly 20,000 individuals making up 70% of all losses were White. The other major category is Other/Unknown with 29% of total losses. The second highest percent change since July 2025, is Asian with nearly 18% of losses.
Nebraska has a high percentage of white people at 84.5%,4 and while it stands to reason that the majority of SNAP losses would be among them, the harm to all groups should not be discounted. Since SNAP race data is self-reported, a large number of the Other/Unknown category is likely people of color and added to the individual identifiers statistics (eg. Asian, Black/African American), the harm is significant.
HR1 SNAP Losses by Gender:
| GENDER | Individuals lost since July 2025 | Percent change since July 2025 | Percent of total losses (out of 28,287 individuals) |
| Female | 10951 | -12.8% | 38.7% |
| Male | 17336 | -26.2% | 61.3% |
Men made up nearly 2/3 of the total SNAP losses since July 2025, totaling over 17,000 individuals.
Conclusion
As Congress considers more funding and reconciliation bills that may slash SNAP this week, we must tell our Members of Congress, NO! Stop taking food from hungry children, seniors, and other Nebraskans!
H.R. 1 has significantly damaged the promise of a functioning, reliable federal food assistance federal program and tens of thousands of Nebraskans are suffering because of it. We must roll back these changes and continue our national commitment to help people access food when they need it most.
Footnotes
- Note that active case and ACCESSNebraska numbers are different because they have different inputs. ACCESSNebraska numbers are a count of the households that received benefits during a specific month. Active case numbers, like those reported through the ORR DHHS fulfilled to report the demographic data in this blog, are the number of active households for that month at the time the data was pulled. Household statuses may change at different points in time, and the data for the number of active households will fluctuate as applications, recertifications, and changes are processed. ↩︎
- Below is a sampling immigration programs that have lost SNAP access under HR1 in Nebraska. ↩︎
- American Immigration Council, “Map the Impact,” Immigrants in Nebraska (2023), accessed at: https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/nebraska/ ↩︎
- https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NE/PST045225 ↩︎
