Attack on the Public Health Workforce

Gabrielle Young, MPH, PhD candidate, CMFPC Board Member

Perhaps one of the most notable changes that will occur due to Public Law 119-21,

better known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBB) 1 , are the mandated

changes to SNAP administration and eligibility and the defunding of SNAP-Ed.

Adjusted work requirements for able-bodied adults, revoked access to certain immigrant

communities, freezing of the thrifty food plan, and shifts in state cost share

responsibilities; we are headed toward a dumpster fire that can only be described as

regressive and counterintuitive to the goal of “Making America Healthy Again”. Several

food advocacy organizations have spoken out about how these changes will impact

food and nutrition security in all communities and negatively hit most independent

grocers due to the decrease in customer spending power 2–4 . But perhaps a less talked

about hardship that we should all be concerned about is the added workload for SNAP

case managers that will surely come.

Since the inception of the Food Stamp Program, states equally shared the responsibility

of SNAP administration costs (50%), and have never shared in the costs of SNAP

benefit. The OBBB has mandated increases for state’s cost share of SNAP

administration (from 50% to 75%), which is slated to begin October 2026, and the

punitively applied state cost share of SNAP benefits, beginning October 2027. These

phased in added financial responsibilities were proposed and passed in an attempt to

make states more accountable for their role in “waste, fraud, and abuse” but the

enforcement on the frontline will become the responsibility of social service personnel.

Already, social service case managers are placed on the frontline to bear the brunt of

public dissatisfaction with state and federal policy changes, but they are also charged

with implementing these often unclear changes and providing information to the

masses; information that is susceptible to rapid change. With the added burden on

states to provide a greater percentage of the dollars needed to administer the program,

we can only assume this will significantly impact the number of SNAP case

management positions that will be retained and the amount of minutia they will have to

wade through. As it is, there is a significant nationwide backlog of initial SNAP case

processing, and the reduction in man power stands to make this back log even longer 5 .

So what does it mean when we add more duties to someone’s job who already has

limited capacity? Literature on administrative burden clues us in a bit of what we could

begin to witness. Dr. Celste Watkins-Hayes speaks eloquently about the types of case

managers we often see in the public sector, Efficiency Engineers and Social Workers 6 .

Efficiency Engineers are described as public servants who see their role as a rigid, pre-

determined list of actions, while Social Workers are individuals in the same role who

adopt a more expansive approach to helping clients 6 . When we inundate caseworkers to

the point where they only have the capacity to apply prescriptive remedies, we miss the

opportunity for creative solutions to be co-developed with clients, ultimately aiding them

in achieving self-sufficiency. This additional stress could also promote a caseworker-

client dynamic that is contentious, further discouraging interaction with the system and

effectively making food assistance too burdensome; which debatably is an intentional

move in the first place.

While state’s begin strategize in order to responsd to the OBBB’s projected impact on

SNAP access, it would be in the state’s best interest to think further downstream on how

budget adjustments could negatively impact the service delivery model of the program

and ultimately the health of their constituents.

Works Cited

1. An Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Title II of H. Con. Res. 14.; 2025:331.

2. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

(SNAP): What Counties Should Know | National Association of Counties. July 9,

2025. Accessed September 19, 2025.

3. SNAP and the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Feeding America Action. Accessed September

19, 2025.

4. Plata-Nino G, JD, Director SD. The Far-Reaching Harmful Impacts of the

Reconciliation Bill — on Families, Older Adults, Immigrants, and State Budgets. Food

Research & Action Center. Accessed September 19, 2025.

5. FY 2023 Reported SNAP Application Processing Timeliness | Food and Nutrition

Service. Accessed September 19, 2025.

6. Watkins-Hayes C. The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and

Policy Reform. University of Chicago Press; 2009.