WORK REQUIREMENTS IMPACTING SNAP ELIGIBILITY TAKE EFFECT, WORRYING RECIPIENTS, FOOD BANKS
ABC 7
A major change impacting SNAP eligibility has now taken effect.
The urgency is real. Before now, Illinois had a work requirement waiver for what the law defines as able-bodied adults who applied for SNAP benefits.
As of Sunday, that's gone, threatening the ability of hundreds of thousands across the state to put food on the table.
Walking into the newly opened food pantry inside West Garfield Park's Legler Regional Public Library on Sunday, SNAP recipient Vickie Seats worries about her and her husband's food stamps.
"We need the SNAP," Seats said. "The SNAP helps us eat."
While she says both qualify for the newly enacted work requirement exemptions, her husband's recent disability has not yet been certified.
"He has a mental illness now, which just came about, and we're trying to get paperwork now," Seats said. "They tell you it's not going to be like 30 days. It could be 90 days. It could be 120 days. It's nothing fast, but we need to eat every day."
As part of last year's "One Big Beautiful Bill," under the new law, "SNAP recipients who are 18 to 64, and parents without children younger than 14 will now be required to prove that they are working or volunteering for a total of 80 hours a month in order to keep their benefits."
"For every month you don't meet those work requirements, that's a strike against you. And three strikes and you're off SNAP in a three-year period," Greater Chicago Food Depository Camerin Mattson said.