North Carolina still has time to avoid Arizona’s food stamps crisis | Opinion
Angelica Garcia did what Arizona asked to keep her family’s food assistance: She submitted a renewal application and repeatedly tried to reach someone who could move it through the system, she told Reuters.
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Still, the Tucson mother and her three children went two months without SNAP. While her case remained unresolved, her family relied on food pantries and stretched basic foods from one meal to the next.
Her benefits were eventually restored. But her eligible family had already spent weeks without grocery money — not because its need disappeared, but because the system failed to process the case in time.
Garcia’s experience was not an isolated bureaucratic mishap. It was one glimpse of a statewide crisis.
Since Congress enacted H.R. 1 last summer, nearly 440,000 Arizonans have lost SNAP assistance — roughly half of all participants. Over 180,000 are children. The decline far exceeds estimates of those directly affected by new eligibility restrictions, suggesting many eligible people are being caught in a system struggling with complicated rules and pressure to reduce errors and future costs. Arizona has issued $600 million less in SNAP benefits since July 2025, even as food bank traffic surges.
North Carolina should take notice. Arizona shows what can happen when sweeping federal changes collide with an underfunded, overburdened system.
Nearly 1.3 million North Carolinians rely on SNAP. Beginning Oct. 1, the federal government will cut its share of SNAP administrative costs from 50% to 25%. State budget writers in North Carolina decided to push those costs onto local governments after local budget deadlines passed.
Counties are expected to face $52 million in new administrative costs in the first year and going forward to operate SNAP. That does not include the staffing, technology and training required by expanded work-reporting and verification rules.
Counties cannot absorb these costs without consequences. They may have to reduce services, cut staff or raise taxes and fees. Smaller and rural counties, often with fewer resources and more residents relying on SNAP, face especially difficult choices. Without state funding, counties will struggle to answer calls, process applications and resolve paperwork problems. Families may wait longer or lose benefits because a document was not processed in time.
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That is how a fiscal cost shift becomes a hunger crisis.
North Carolina’s recently approved budget did not fund food assistance that families need. Instead, state leaders preserved tax cuts benefiting wealthy households and profitable corporations while pushing SNAP costs onto communities with limited revenue options.
The budget not only failed to fund the new administrative costs; it would also allow the state to take locally generated sales tax revenue to cover future SNAP benefit costs. Beginning in October 2027, North Carolina could be required to pay 5% to 15% of benefits historically funded by the federal government — roughly $150 million in the first year based on a flawed measure called the payment error rate. State budget writers will require local governments to pay that cost, too.
At the same time, the budget places measures on the November ballot that would limit local property tax growth and cap income tax rates on corporate profits and individual income, further restricting revenue options.
Counties are being told to administer a more complicated program, prevent errors, pay more and do it with fewer tools. That is a recipe for growing not just administrative challenges but hunger.
North Carolina leaders must cover counties’ increased administrative expenses and keep state benefit costs at the state level. Otherwise, we risk a patchwork of access to the stabilizing power of food assistance for families, local grocers and retailers, farmers and the broader community.
Congress must delay the new SNAP cost shifts and give states and counties enough time and resources to implement them without pushing eligible families out. As Congress negotiates the Farm Bill and considers new budget legislation, lawmakers should extend the SNAP cost shift delay to every state. Giving states and counties until at least 2029 to prepare would protect families’ access to food while preserving SNAP spending that supports farmers, grocers and local economies.
Arizona’s experience is a cautionary tale. North Carolina still has time not to repeat it — but only if state and federal leaders act before the warning becomes another crisis.
Alexandra Sirota is the executive director of NC Budget & Tax Center. Joseph Palomino is the director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress.
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