Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” Bill Is About to Screw With States’ Budgets

Already burdened with the need to fulfill strict requirements mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, state governments all across the country are about to face even higher costs.

The administration of many public benefits that faced cuts after Congress passed Trump’s budget bill last year will become more complicated in October, even as state governments are already struggling to meet the stringent new requirements congressional Republicans approved.

Several provisions from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act relating to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will go into effect on October 1. This will include pushing more of the cost of SNAP administration onto states, and limiting Medicaid eligibility for legal immigrants.

“If you want to actually be administering the program well, you should be investing more in the administration. Instead, we’re seeing the opposite,” said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, about SNAP.

Historically, states and the federal government have shared SNAP administrative expenses equally. But with the start of the new fiscal year at the beginning of October, states will need to shoulder 75 percent of SNAP administration costs, while the federal government will lower its reimbursement to 25 percent. This change is expected to push nearly $17 billion onto states over five years.

This will come as states are already working to implement tightened work requirements established by the Republican law, and are preparing for a pending shift in the cost of benefits based on their error rate—that is, the amount of overpayments or underpayments of SNAP benefits in a fiscal year. Beginning in 2027, states will have to shoulder up to 15 percent of benefit costs depending on their error rate. The lower the error rate, the lower the share of state costs. But achieving that goal requires investment in SNAP administration on the state level, and that’s about to become even more expensive.

“Retraining staff, paying staff better, having more oversight over quality assurance,........

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