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Just over a year after passage of the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA), Michigan families are feeling its harm. The federal megabill cuts billions of dollars in food assistance and healthcare for struggling households to give further tax breaks to the ultrawealthy.
While good jobs remain hard to come by and food prices rise, the bill's new layers of red tape have contributed to the loss of benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for more than 145,000 Michiganders.
As OBBBA strips grocery money from the families with the least, it will reduce the annual tax bills for the top 1% of Michigan households (those with incomes of at least $715,000 a year) by an average of $49,220.
Federal law limits adults without disabilities to three months of SNAP benefits every three years unless they prove they're working at least 80 hours per month. Before OBBBA, people 55 and older and parents of minor children were exempt from the time limit. OBBBA increased the upper age threshold from 55 to 65 and narrowed the parental exemption to those with children under 14.
Currently, the federal government waives the three-month time limit in Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency and Presque Isle Counties due to the region's high unemployment rate. Yet, residents here are losing SNAP access, partly because of OBBBA's complicated timeline and confusing paperwork.
In Northeast Michigan, more than 1 in 4 people who have lost SNAP benefits are children. Kids already face higher food insecurity rates, making the targeting of their families for cuts extra cruel.
The bill's also worsening a hunger crisis among older adults. From 2021 through 2024, food insecurity among Michiganders ages 50 and older increased by 59%.
Disabled people are losing vital food benefits, too. Although they're exempt from the work requirement, SNAP's definition of "disability" is one of the narrowest of any safety net program, leaving out many with significant conditions and failing to acknowledge the challenges that disabled people often face in proving they qualify for an exemption.
In the four years before OBBBA, hunger in Northeast Michigan grew by 36%. This will continue as people lose food and healthcare benefits under the new law. It will be harder to measure, however, because in 2025 the federal government stopped comprehensive tracking of food insecurity rates.
The federal administration can try to hide evidence of the harm stemming from OBBBA and other recent policies. But they can't hide the monthly increases in need our local food pantries are seeing, the soaring prices we feel on every trip to the grocery store, or what we see happening to our families, friends and neighbors.
We applaud our state legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for supporting state-level programs that promote healthy food access. These include Double Up Food Bucks, Ten Cents a Meal and funding for universal school breakfast and lunch.
But these initiatives are meant to complement SNAP, not replace it. And they could all be at risk in the coming years, too, as OBBBA shifts hundreds of millions of dollars in SNAP costs from the federal government to our state budget.
For many Americans, even full-time work doesn't pay enough to cover basics. Seven in 10 workers using SNAP work at least 35 hours per week-typically for some of the world's largest and most profitable companies, like Walmart and Amazon.
Those who already have more than they could spend in multiple lifetimes can't continue taking from those who are struggling just to afford survival needs. It's time for our lawmakers to put families over billionaires.