One Year Later: Lessons Learned from the Government Shutdown and Why SNAP Still Needs Our Attention

One year ago, the government shutdown put SNAP benefits in question for more than 700,000 Tennesseans.

The number one program to fight hunger was suddenly unavailable. Parents were skipping meals, food banks were overwhelmed, and neighbors were left wondering when they would see November benefits hit their cards.  

Tennessee saw firsthand how harmful it would be if SNAP didn't exist.

This year, there is a different SNAP crisis on our hands. Thousands of Tennesseans have lost SNAP since July 2025, and the state is about to face its largest bill to fund the program yet. 

When HR 1 (or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) passed in July 2025, it fundamentally changed the way the SNAP program is funded. It shifted a large portion of the funding to the states that had historically been covered by the federal government. Now, Tennessee is up against a hefty price tag.

SNAP is paid for in two parts: administrative funding and benefit funding.

	Before HR 1	After HR 1
Administrative Funding	State pays 50%  Feds pay 50%	State pays 75%  Feds pay 25%
Benefit Funding	State pays 0%  Feds pay 100%	State pays 0-15%  Feds pay remaining portion

Above: Chart organizing administrative funding and benefit funding costs before and after HR 1. Administrative funding covers the operation and management of the SNAP program. Benefit funding is the actual benefit dollars that are loaded onto SNAP EBT cards.

The increased administrative cost has already hit Tennessee as of October 1, 2026. The General Assembly appropriated $58 million to cover this increased cost. However, the administrative cost for this upcoming fiscal year (FY) is estimated to be $77 million.

Starting in 2027, Tennessee will also have to fund 10% of SNAP benefits, which cost estimates project will be at least $170 million. This percentage is determined based on the payment error rate (PER), which measures the accuracy of SNAP benefit amounts granted by the Department of Human Services. A "payment error" occurs when the monthly SNAP benefit is miscalculated due to a typo or unintentional mistake, which causes the household to receive over or under the amount of benefits they are eligible for. It is important to note the payment error rates do not measure fraud. The metric that measures fraud is called intentional program violations.  

States with the highest payment error rates, meaning the states that make the most mistakes when calculating SNAP benefits, were given an extra two years before they have to start paying their share of SNAP benefits. Tennessee’s payment error rate is 9.44%, and we were not given that extension. That means states like ours, which get benefit amounts more accurate, are the ones paying up first. Make that make sense.

Lowering a payment error rate takes time, and some states have unfairly been given an opportunity to do just that. Tennessee deserves the same runway for success: the opportunity to lower the payment error rate and thus, the cost to the state.

See our one pager outlining payment error rates and the cost shift HERE.

So, what is there to do about all this?

Congress could delay these costs so that Tennessee would have a chance to sustainably lower its PER without costing eligible Tennesseans their SNAP benefits.

As previously mentioned, while these massive costs sit on the horizon, more than a hundred thousand Tennesseans have lost SNAP during the last year.

Before the end of this year, Congress must address this problem. They must delay the SNAP cost shift without creating additional penalties that will wreck state budgets and harm SNAP participants. Momentum to delay this shift is growing.

What can you do?

Call your state and federal legislators and make sure they understand what the SNAP cost shift could mean in Tennessee. Remind them who we are talking about when talking about SNAP: children, grandparents, veterans, single parents, and the working poor. 

Let last year’s government shutdown be a reminder of what SNAP means to our community. We cannot let dense conversations about SNAP funding allow us to forget what this program provides food on a child’s table, economic growth in the local community, and a safety net for families that lack one.

Tennessee deserves the same timeline to lower its payment error rate and prepare to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits without harming participants in the process. At the end of the day, it is unfair to punish states like Tennessee that have lower payment error rates.

The clock is ticking. Use our form HERE to contact Congress and urge them to delay the cost shift.