Key Points and Summary – After the shutdown, the fight restored SNAP funding, and USDA approved waivers letting 18 states restrict purchases of items deemed non-nutritious—often soda, candy, energy drinks, and some sweetened beverages.
-States including Florida, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Tennessee, and Hawaii will implement different rule sets on staggered dates in 2026, creating a patchwork system.
US Treasury Check. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-The Trump administration frames the change as part of MAHA, arguing taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize foods linked to chronic disease.
-Critics question enforcement and whether bans improve diets. Rules range from taxable-food bans to soda-only limits. Separately, a federal judge ordered more time to implement new eligibility limits, especially affecting immigrants.
18 States Can Now Limit SNAP Soda and Candy—Is Yours Next?
During the government shutdown fight back in the fall, funding for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits lapsed, jeopardizing food access for poorer Americans in much of the country. Some states took special steps to protect the benefits, leading to a separate fight between the Trump Administration and governors. Eventually, the shutdown ended, and the benefits were restored.
Meanwhile, following the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture has signed a waiver that allows 18 states to remove “unhealthy foods’ from the SNAP program. The program is used by 1 in 8 Americans.
The waivers were approved and announced by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On December 10, waivers were approved for Hawaii, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, joining Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado, Florida, West Virginia, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Utah.
Stimulus Check. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Is a Fourth Stimulus Check Possible? Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The waivers will “amend the statutory definition of ‘food for purchase,'” under the Trump Administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative.
“President Trump has made it clear: we are restoring SNAP to its true purpose—nutrition. Under the MAHA initiative, we are taking bold, historic steps to reverse the chronic diseases epidemic that has taken root in this country for far too long,” Secretary Rollins said in the USDA statement.
“America’s governors are answering that call with courage and innovation, offering solutions that honor the generosity of the taxpayer while helping families live longer, healthier lives. With these new waivers, we are empowering states to lead, protecting our children from the dangers of highly-processed foods, and moving one step closer to the President’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.”
“Thank you to the 18 governors who are leading the charge on SNAP reform to restore the health of Americans—especially our kids. Their courageous leadership is exactly what we need to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy added in his own statement. “We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create.”
A Patchwork of States
How will it work?
According to the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service website, “USDA is empowering states with greater flexibility to manage their programs by approving SNAP Food Restriction Waivers that restrict the purchase of non-nutritious items like soda and candy.”
As of Friday, the waivers were approved in mostly red states and not in blue states, though there are some exceptions. Colorado approved the waiver, while Mississippi, Alabama, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have not. Virginia, a blue state with a Republican governor, approved the waiver, while Kentucky and Kansas, red states with Democratic governors, did not.
The rules vary by state, according to the USDA website. And the restrictions will go into effect at different times in 2026. Indiana’s and Iowa’s, for instance, will be implemented January 1, while Arkansas’s will not go into effect until July 1, and Hawaii’s not until August 1.
Arkansas’ rule, for instance, once it goes into effect, “restricts purchase of soda, fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice, unhealthy drinks, and candy.” Florida’s rule “restricts purchase of soda, energy drinks, candy, and prepared desserts.”
Iowa’s rule “restricts all taxable food items as defined by the Iowa Department of Revenue except food-producing plants and seeds for food-producing plants.” South Carolina’s waiver restricts the purchase of candy, energy drinks, soft drinks, and sweetened beverages.”
Virginia only restricts “sweetened beverages,” while most of the other states either limit soft drinks, energy drinks, candy, or some combination of all three. Wisconsin is among the states that have made no changes to SNAP restrictions.
Other Restrictions
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act had imposed new SNAP restrictions, including modifications to work requirements, matching funds requirements, and more. Another concerns non-citizen eligibility for the SNAP program.
Meanwhile, per Reuters, a judge has ruled that states must be given more time to implement new SNAP restrictions, especially related to immigrants.
The ruling came from U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai in Oregon, who ” issued an injunction requiring the U.S. Department of Agriculture to extend the expiration date of a grace period for the states to comply with the new restrictions on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from November 1 to April 9.” This was in response to a group of Democratic-led states that had sued.
“Attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia, in a lawsuit filed last month, had said the guidance unlawfully deemed permanent residents who were initially granted asylum or admitted as refugees to the United States as ineligible for SNAP benefits,” the Reuters report said.
“The inability to provide compliance in the time period in which they were forced to by virtue of the guidance contributed to an erosion of trust,” the judge said in his ruling.
Do Junk Food Bans Work?
A radio report from Boston’s WBUR, in August, examined whether it’s good policy to restrict processed “junk foods” from SNAP programs.
Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and the director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, told WBUR that while soda and other junk food undoubtedly contribute to adverse health outcomes, determining whether removing them from SNAP is a good idea is a more complicated question.
When the forerunner of SNAP began, in the Depression era, an “explicit goal was to boost sales for American farmers and the food industry. And so this program has always had these dual goals of helping low-income Americans get food on the table and helping the U.S. food sector.”
He also discussed some of the tradeoffs in the program.
“May have other challenges that worsen their diets and their health, and individuals who have low incomes that don’t go on SNAP, maybe have other social support, have other ways of dealing with it. That’s my hypothesis. But regardless, even if it’s not SNAP causally worsening the diets, SNAP’s not doing enough to boost people up to where they need to be,” the doctor said in the interview.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
