OLDER CHICAGOANS AT HIGH RISK OF LOSING SNAP FOOD ASSISTANCE AS NEW WORK RULES KICK IN
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Ernie Uribe has spent the past weeks hauling cans of soup and sweeping the floor of the food pantry at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in Woodlawn.
Uribe, 60, is trying to meet expanded work rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides him with $252 a month to buy groceries. But the hours might not be enough. He’s volunteering while spending about two nights a week helping care for his 91-year-old mother, who needs around-the-clock assistance.
“So, at the same time I’m on that ... I had to look for 80 hours,” of work or volunteering a month to meet the new rules, says Uribe, who lives in Morgan Park.
Older adults in the Chicago area are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits after work requirements were expanded to include 55- to 64-year-olds as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax overhaul law passed last year. In Chicago, only about 35% of households that included adults in this age group were working at least 20 hours per week, according to a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ analysis of data from the U.S. Census 2024 American Community Survey.
The new requirements call for people to work or volunteer 80 hours a month, which translates to about four hours a day. The rules also were expanded to include veterans and parents whose youngest child is 14 years or older. If SNAP recipients don’t meet the rules or get an exemption by May, they will begin losing their benefits.