Illinois program to provide food benefits to former SNAP recipients

A new state program took effect Saturday to provide food benefits to people who have recently become ineligible because of federal changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger, or FRESH, program kicked off Aug. 1 after state lawmakers appropriated $70 million in the fiscal year 2027 budget to establish a state food assistance program. The initiative allows households that lost their SNAP benefits earlier this year to receive a $400 one-time payment.

“At a time when the cost of groceries, gas, and utilities are all rising, Donald Trump and Republicans decided to strip food assistance from nearly 100,000 people,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement. “In Illinois, we passed the FRESH program to help provide some relief for families kicked off food assistance, but no state can backfill the cruel and imminent cuts set in motion by Trump’s budget bill.”

About 150,000 Illinoisians were expected to lose food assistance benefits beginning May 1 after new work requirements established by Congress went into effect. About 1.5 million Illinoisians received SNAP benefits in June, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services. That includes 830,342 households. The number of beneficiaries in June was down 134,734 people compared to April.

Eligible households are those that lost benefits because of the federal changes and are automatically enrolled in the FRESH program. Recipients will receive the one-time payment to their Illinois Link card to use on food.

People who lose SNAP coverage in the coming months will also receive payments until funding for the program runs out.

Other financial impacts

The budget also included $55 million to hire 450 Department of Human Services employees, including staff to update state systems to comply with federal changes to SNAP and Medicaid eligibility.

Illinois, and most other states, are set to be on the hook for higher costs in the coming years because of the changes Congress made.

Read more: Illinois food assistance error rate continues to grow as federal penalties loom

Beginning in October 2027, states will cover half of administrative costs for the program, and many states will begin covering a portion of SNAP benefits. States with an error rate greater than 10% will have to cover 15% of the cost of benefits starting in fiscal year 2029.

Illinois’ error rate was 14.7% in federal fiscal year 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That was up from 11.6% the year before.

Illinois will have another year to produce a lower error rate, giving the state more time to rectify problems. As of now, the state could be on the hook for $700 million in new SNAP costs by the end of 2028 if nothing changes.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Ben Szalinski, Capitol News Illinois

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Ben Szalinski joined Capitol News Illinois in November 2024 as a statehouse reporter covering the General Assembly from Springfield and other events happening around state government. He previously covered Illinois government for The Daily Line following time in McHenry County with the Northwest Herald. Ben is also a graduate of the University of Illinois Springfield PAR program. He is a lifelong Illinois resident and is originally from Mundelein.

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