State Sens. Art Haywood (D., 4th District) and Vincent Hughes (D., 7th District), Share Food Program Chief Operations Officer John Miller, and Philabundence Executive Officer Loree Jones held a press conference on July 18 to denounce food assistance cuts and new work requirements. The new law and rules will become effective on Sept. 1.

Gathered in the Mt. Airy Save A Lot grocery parking lot, the speakers said that 80% of the store’s customers rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The requirement change, part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” requires participants ages 18 to 64 to verify and log at least 80 hours of work, school or volunteer hours a month. However, in a study published on April 7, the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based policy research organization, found that due to complex paperwork and deadlines, work requirements decrease program use and do not increase employment. 

Hughes critiqued the bill as making assistance unnecessarily difficult, saying there is no waste or fraud in SNAP. Now that the bill has passed, he argued, local governments must spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to fill the gap. Hughes also pointed to Pennsylvania’s low unemployment rate of 4%. “It is absolutely unnecessary to be so cruel on individuals who are struggling and trying to feed themselves and feed their families,” he said. “We will not forget this moment.”

Haywood, along with the other speakers, pointed to the ripple effects of a loss of benefits on stores and the state’s agriculture. In Pennsylvania, food insecurity is rising across all 67 counties. Jones said Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties had a 75%, 40%, and 60% rise in food insecurity rates, respectively. After cuts, she estimated 45,000 Philadelphians would lose benefits. 

Miller described the cuts as attacks on working families, poverty, caregivers and people with chronic health conditions. Programs like Share Food and Philabundance do not have the resources to fill the gap, and their leaders are turning to advocacy for federal funding. Hughes and Haywood also pledged to host more events notifying enrollees of the Sept. 1 deadline. 

“SNAP is more than a benefit. It's a matter of dignity,” Miller said. “Weakening it weakens our communities and weakens our very fabric of what it is to be human, and that's providing, doing better, leaving the generation better than what you left it.”