Reading view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.

SNAP work requirements have changed. Here is a look at options to keep benefits, including volunteering

A hand holds a green card by a handheld payment device over a bright green surface, with a small orange price label on the device.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Changes from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” are forcing states to expand work requirements for those who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. 

The law did not rewrite the core work requirements for SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. Instead, it changed who must meet them. In Wisconsin, the changes could put around 36,000 people at risk of losing their food assistance benefits. 

Policy consultant David Rubel said federal law allows a third option that could make assistance more accessible for those who are at risk of losing benefits.

Work requirements

The age range for adults required to meet work requirements will increase from 18-54 to 18-64. Parents of children age 14 and older will now also need to meet work requirements.

Federal law allows three primary ways for some adults without dependents to continue receiving FoodShare. 

The primary way is employment. People must work at least 20 hours a week or 80 hours a month to keep benefits. 

Another way is training or workforce programs. People can participate in state-approved job training programs for 20 hours a week and keep benefits. 

The third option, Rubel said, can require significantly fewer hours. 

Workfare allows people to work or volunteer in a state-approved program for a number of hours based on the value of that person’s SNAP benefits. 

According to federal law, the number of hours required is calculated by dividing a person’s monthly SNAP benefits by the state minimum wage. So, if someone in Wisconsin, where the minimum wage is $7.25, receives $180 in food stamps, they’d have to work or volunteer only about 25 hours monthly to continue receiving benefits. 

Rubel said SNAP recipients may not realize that option exists.

“If someone thinks they must volunteer 80 hours a month, they may assume they can’t comply,” he said. “But six hours a week is very different.”

Why you should know

While not directly promoted on the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website, Elizabeth Goodsitt, a DHS spokesperson, said workfare is available in Wisconsin under the FoodShare Employment and Training (FSET) program.

According to Goodsitt, once a FoodShare member chooses to participate in FSET, a case manager will discuss the situation and background to see if workfare is a good approach for that person. 

“Sites that accept FSET participants for workfare are set up by the FSET vendor and structured to offer members the chance to build their work experience, record and references,” she wrote in an email. “If a member does workfare, their case manager works with them to calculate the number of hours that will meet their work requirement, specifically, based on the amount of FoodShare they receive each month.” 

Wisconsin is one of four states, including Texas, Vermont and South Dakota, that signed a pledge committing to work opportunities for people at risk of losing SNAP benefits. 

Because enforcement has just resumed in many places, states are beginning to notify recipients through recertification letters. Recertification letters are routine notices SNAP participants receive every six months to confirm their eligibility.

But in many states, the public messaging around SNAP work requirements focuses primarily on the 80-hour employment threshold. 

“If people only hear about the 80 hours, they may assume they have no choice,” Rubel said. “People should have all the information so they can make an informed decision.”

SNAP work requirements have changed. Here is a look at options to keep benefits, including volunteering is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Evers signs bill to ban soda and candy SNAP purchases, provide money to keep error rate low

A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Wisconsin joins 22 other U.S. states in seeking permission from the federal government to ban SNAP recipients from purchasing candy and/or soda with their benefits. A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for SNAP purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Wisconsin will officially join the 22 U.S. states that have sought permission from the federal government to ban Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients from purchasing candy and/or soda with their benefits.

Gov. Tony Evers signed AB 180, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 116, on Monday. In his remarks, Evers celebrated additional funds included in the bill that are meant to keep the state’s payment error rate low but ignored the candy and soda ban that the law will also implement.

Evers, who is serving out his final term in office, said in a statement that he was glad to sign the bill.

“In spite of the chaos at the federal level and the continued attacks on our FoodShare program, I am proud of the work my administration has done over the past year to ensure our kids, families, veterans and seniors across our state receive the resources they need to access basic food and groceries. As long as I am governor, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Wisconsin families and taxpayers from the harmful decisions of the Trump Administration,” he said in the statement released by his office. 

The bill, coauthored by Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) and Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield), initially sought only to implement the ban, but additional funds were attached through an amendment after negotiations with Evers. 

Evers started seeking additional state funds for FoodShare last year after President Donald Trump signed a federal tax and spending law that made many changes to the SNAP program. Those changes included cutting the federal government’s coverage of administrative costs from 75% to 50%, eliminating funding for nutrition education programs and steepening penalties for states that have payment error rates over 6%. 

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republicans across the country, including in Wisconsin, have been pushing to ban soda and candy for SNAP recipients, saying it will help keep people healthy. Democrats have criticized the measure, saying it will stigmatize already disadvantaged children and families. Several Democrats, including Evers, provided support for the measure after lawmakers attached more than $70 million for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) to support administration of the program. 

The Wisconsin DHS had estimated that federal penalties could cost the state over $200 million a year. 

DHS Secretary Kirsten Johnson said in a statement that “ensuring the FoodShare program has the resources we need to meet new federal requirements is critical to maintaining access to essential nutrition benefits for Wisconsin families and saving Wisconsin taxpayer dollars.”

Wisconsin will now submit a waiver to the federal government to implement its candy and soda prohibition. The bill also includes more than $3 million so the state health department  can create and maintain an electronic platform to help with implementation of the prohibition.

Evers told reporters last week that he didn’t agree with barring people from buying certain foods but it was “one of those things called compromise.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Wisconsin Senate sends Gov. Evers SNAP bill tying funding to soda and candy ban

Many candies contain Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6. They are among the food dyes banned in West Virginia.

There are 22 states that have submitted waivers to the federal government to implement a prohibition on purchasing soda, candy and/or energy drinks using SNAP benefits. (Photo by Carol Johnson/Stateline)

A bill barring Wisconsin’s nearly 700,000 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients from buying candy and soda with their benefits, while providing additional funding and positions to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) is on its way to Gov. Tony Evers.

A provision in the federal tax and spending law signed by President Donald Trump last year penalizes states that have a SNAP payment error rate above 6%. The Evers administration has sought additional funding to increase staffing to keep Wisconsin’s error rate low. Evers estimates Wisconsin could lose up to $205 million annually from a penalty.

Evers had been requesting lawmakers to take action since August, just a month after the federal law was signed. After negotiations with Evers, lawmakers attached the money to AB 180, coauthored by Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) and Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield), that would prohibit recipients from using their benefits to buy candy and soda. 

The money will go towards a FoodShare employment and training program as well as covering administrative costs that have been shifted from the federal government to the state and creating quality control initiatives to help keep FoodShare error rates low. 

Evers did not mention the ban on candy and soda in his statement on the legislation, instead focusing on the new money and positions. 

“Unfortunately, thanks to changes under President Trump and Republicans’ so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ things could get a whole lot worse for folks across Wisconsin — and our state’s bottom line,” Evers said in his statement. “Wisconsin taxpayers are already on the hook for over $284 million in future state budgets because of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ so it was important that we get this bill done to help make sure Wisconsinites don’t have to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars more in penalty fees to the Trump Administration every year.” 

Evers told reporters on Wednesday that he disagrees with the candy and soda ban and thinks “people should have the ability to make those choices when they’re getting their food,” but the other provisions were “really important.”

“It’s one of those things called compromise,” Evers said. “This definitely takes precedence, so it’s all good.”

The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been encouraging states to institute candy and soda bans for SNAP recipients  with the stated goal of helping improve health and address chronic illness rates.

It is unclear whether the bill will have a demonstrable effect on people’s health.

UW-Madison food insecurity expert Judith Bartfeld told the Examiner in May 2025, as lawmakers were debating the bill, that the SNAP program was “intended to provide extra resources to support buying food at the store — and its effectiveness in reducing food insecurity is well documented,” but that there “have long been concerns that restricting how benefits can be used would make things more complicated for retailers, more stigmatizing for participants, unlikely to translate into meaningful health improvements, and would risk reducing participation and jeopardizing the well documented benefits of SNAP on food security.”

Another change to SNAP under the federal tax and spending law included the elimination of funding in September 2025 for the SNAP education program SNAP-Ed, which provided cooking classes and information on healthy eating to beneficiaries. According to FoodBank News, food banks, including the Hunger Task Force in Wisconsin which lost about $467,000 in federal funds, had to rethink educating their clients on nutrition.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are 22 states that have submitted waivers to the federal government to implement a prohibition on purchasing soda, candy and/or energy drinks using SNAP benefits. Colorado and Hawaii are the only other states with a Democratic governor that have approved a version of a ban.

In addition to the $69 million and 70 positions for the Wisconsin DHS to help ensure quality control of SNAP, the bill included $3 million in 2025-26 for the development of a FoodShare platform for product eligibility as well as $250,000 in each 2025-26 and 2026-27 to help with the administration of the platform.

The bill passed the Senate in a 25-8 vote. Sen. Jodi Habush (D-Whitefish Bay), Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) and Sen. Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie) joined Republicans in favor of the legislation. 

Some Democratic lawmakers criticized the provision during floor debate.

“Fundamentally, I have a problem with the idea that we need to be here, the Legislature, telling people who need money on their Quest card to put food on their table, that we need to micromanage what food they buy for themselves and their families,” Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said. “You know what, kids from families that qualify for FoodShare might deserve a little candy and soda now and then, too. And ultimately, I think we all want to support health… but micromanaging the grocery purchases of low-income folks is not the way to accomplish that.” 

Spreitzer said many in the Senate Democratic caucus, whether they supported or opposed the legislation, were voting from “a place of frustration” due to the money being tied to the ban. 

“This is ugly, ugly politics in this building, and I wish it had not come to this,” he said. “I wish we could’ve all come together and said, ‘Let’s provide the money to the staff that is needed to run FoodShare, and then let’s debate separately this other bill.’”

During a Joint Finance Committee meeting on March 11 when the bill was discussed, Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) recalled her 10 years working as a child care provider in Milwaukee, serving “some of the state’s poorest kids” who were “also extremely bright, extremely talented and extremely resilient.” She said the bill should have focused on ensuring  that vulnerable people have resources to feed their families instead of monitoring the type of food in their carts. 

“Some of these kids, the vast majority of them don’t get to have these luxuries all the time at home. Their parents, regardless of what this body may believe, aren’t constantly supplying kids with soda and with candy,” Johnson said.

A 2016 USDA study found that “there were no major differences in the expenditure patterns of SNAP and non-SNAP households, no matter how the data were categorized,” and that SNAP recipients, similar to non-SNAP recipients, spent about 20 cents of every dollar on sweetened drinks, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar.

Johnson said she had an experience in 2013 that highlighted to her the decisions that some families were making when the daycare ran out of milk during the day. She said she went to the nearby gas station where a gallon of milk cost $5, a stark difference from a local grocery store in Wauwatosa where she would buy two gallons of milk for $5.

“After I bought that gallon of milk and I walked out, I realized why, in some cases, our poorer families were buying two liters of sodas versus a gallon of milk,” Johnson said. “Back then, a two liter of soda was $1.19 all day long. A gallon of milk was $5. It wasn’t about choosing unhealthy food. It was about making those food stamp dollars stretch as long as possible, so those kids could continue to eat.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

GOP cuts in federal food aid scramble passage of long-delayed farm bill

A farmer harvests corn beside Iowa Highway 163. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

A farmer harvests corn beside Iowa Highway 163. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee advanced a sweeping farm bill early this month, attempting to revive Congress’ stalled effort to rewrite the nation’s agriculture law the same way it’s been done for decades.

But the vote also exposed the fragile coalition that will determine whether the legislation can ever move forward. 

Those who watch the process closely told States Newsroom they are not sure a new farm bill will be enacted, given the rupture in the traditional alliance that has in the past successfully brought together agriculture interests and anti-hunger advocates to support farm bills across party lines.

Historically, farm bills have brought together a diverse coalition of advocates and lawmakers across party lines. The arrangement dates back to the 1973 farm bill, when Congress first combined nutrition programs with farm subsidies to build a coalition strong enough to pass the legislation. The sweeping legislation now includes food and nutrition programs, energy, conservation, and rural development, as well as farm support and crop insurance. 

Now, cuts and changes in the nation’s biggest nutrition program, which could impose major new financial burdens on states, have been made by Republicans completely outside the usual farm bill process. This added to changes Democrats made in 2022, when they skipped the farm bill and used budget reconciliation to increase funding for climate-friendly farm conservation programs — though it is the food aid cuts that have most roiled the current debate.

These recent shifts could fundamentally change how the farm bill moves through Congress, said Christopher Neubert, deputy director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University. He is also a former Democratic staffer on both the Senate Agriculture and Budget committees.

“It’s a careful balance …. but the farm bill was one thing that felt kind of certain,” Neubert said in an interview. “Now we’re entering a new period that I think does make a lot of people uneasy.”

“Unless there’s a real push to take a look at some of the serious challenges that exist and meaningfully address them, it might be very difficult to get a five-year farm bill across the finish line,” Neubert said.

Policy and funding together

The Agriculture Committee approved its version of the farm bill in a 34–17 vote March 5, following a markup that stretched more than 20 hours and featured sharp partisan disputes, particularly over the previous cuts to nutrition programs.

The legislation would set policy and funding levels for major food, agriculture and conservation programs for the next five years. The text and a title-by-title summary of the 802-page bill can be found here. 

The farm bill’s five-year timeline in the past gave some certainty and planning ability to farmers and ranchers, while bringing lawmakers and stakeholders back to the table periodically to reexamine the programs.

Congress last passed a farm bill in 2018, which expired in 2023. Since then, lawmakers have kept many programs running through temporary extensions, as negotiations over new versions fell through.

In the meantime, Congress made some of the largest changes to farm bill programs outside the normal reauthorization process – a major shift that has disrupted the usual process.

Last year’s GOP spending and tax cuts package, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” reshaped nutrition funding, cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. 

SNAP, administered by states, is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. It provides monthly, income-based benefits to help low-income individuals and families purchase groceries. Democrats have widely criticized the changes to the program.

Some Democrats do sign on 

Even so, the House Agriculture Committee vote showed some bipartisan support. 

Seven Democrats joined Republicans in backing the legislation: Reps. Jim Costa of California, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Adam Gray of California, Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan and Josh Riley of New York. 

That was slightly more bipartisan than when the committee advanced a farm bill two years ago. Only four Democrats supported a measure that included some SNAP cuts within the farm bill.

Among those crossing party lines this year was Rivet, a freshman lawmaker and member of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.

Rivet hosted a press event on March 10 at a Saginaw County farm to promote the bill, highlighting the balancing act some moderate Democrats may face if the legislation reaches the House floor in an election year. 

“Farmers need solutions and certainty,” Rivet said, noting that she backed the bill because of provisions related to disaster relief, crop insurance and specialty crop support.

Still, she acknowledged the legislation will need changes as it moves forward.

“I was excited to be able to vote ‘yes’ on this farm bill,” Rivet said. “But I need to say that the bill is not perfect. We do need to reverse the devastating cuts to SNAP for hungry kids and families.”

Restoration of SNAP funding resisted

The debate over SNAP and other nutrition programs loomed over much of the committee’s work and will continue to be a major factor as the legislation moves forward. 

“The historic cuts to SNAP jeopardize the path forward for this bill and future farm bills,” Davids said during the committee debate.

Democrats offered multiple amendments to restore SNAP funding, but Republicans did not support any.

Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the liberal-leaning Environmental Working Group and a longtime farm policy advocate, said the longstanding alliance between those who back SNAP and farm supporters helped Congress pass farm bills for decades even as fewer Americans lived in rural communities. 

But he argues that the recent policy decisions have effectively dismantled that agreement. The cuts to nutrition programs in last year’s budget reconciliation bill helped offset new investment in farm subsidies, which Faber and other advocates contend go disproportionately to large farmers and do little to support smaller farms.

“Republicans chose to blow up the farm bill coalition in the one big, beautiful bill …so if Congress fails to pass another farm bill ever again, it will be Republicans who rightfully will bear the blame,” Faber said in an interview.

Faber called the political shift around the farm bill “a historic once-in-a-generation miscalculation by the farm lobby that will, in the long run, undermine public support for the farm safety net.”

Full effects of SNAP cuts still to come

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the SNAP changes would reduce federal SNAP spending by roughly 20% through 2034 while imposing stricter work requirements and shifting some program costs to states.

Some provisions will not take effect until 2027 and 2028, meaning the full effects have yet to be felt.

The changes have drawn criticism from hunger advocates and state officials who warn the shift could strain state budgets and make it harder for families to access food assistance.

In a recent letter, the National Governors Association and other state and local organizations told Congress that the policy changes could throw hundreds of millions of dollars in costs onto states and risk destabilizing the program if lawmakers do not intervene.

During debate on an amendment from Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., that would have reversed the SNAP cuts, a proposal that ultimately failed, the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota, warned the longstanding farm bill coalition could be unraveling.

“We could be driving the last nail in the coffin of this coalition today,” Craig said. “For some of us, this is your first farm bill markup. For all of us, it could likely be our last, because by decimating the nutrition title in the farm bill, by splitting the food and farm programs apart as Republicans have done in this process, you have destroyed the farm bill coalition.”

Craig said a path forward for this committee’s bill would be fraught, calling it a “shell of a farm bill” that is “absolutely flawed” and “a missed opportunity” to address the economic pressures facing agriculture.

“It is going to have challenges getting broad bipartisan support on the House floor if it even makes it there,” Craig said during the markup. “My sincere hope is that this is just ‘act one’ of several acts.”

‘There is more work to be done’

The House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill proposal, titled the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, closely resembles the legislation the panel advanced two years ago. 

That earlier bill never received a vote on the House floor, and the Senate Agriculture Committee has yet to advance its own farm bill framework.

Throughout the markup, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., urged lawmakers to support the measure. He repeatedly encouraged members to “not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” as they debated amendments to the bill’s 12 titles covering farm supports, conservation, trade, rural development and nutrition.

“I am proud of this bill and the work we have done to further improve it. There is more work to be done,” Thompson said at the conclusion of the markup, which he called a “long slog.” 

Thompson has said he has met with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., about bringing the measure to the House floor. 

But the legislation will likely need some Democratic support, particularly to move through the Senate, where votes to advance legislation like the farm bill typically require a 60-vote supermajority.

Senators, farm interests

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said during a hearing March 10 that she hopes lawmakers can craft a bipartisan farm bill that addresses the needs of both farmers and families who rely on SNAP.

“I am hoping we can get to a better place. I hope as we look at a farm bill, that we include some corrections to what happened last summer,” Klobuchar said, referencing the “big beautiful” law.

For his part, U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said he appreciated the House effort to advance the farm bill and indicated he may want to go in a similar direction.

“This builds off the historic investments we made in the Working Families Tax Cuts to strengthen the farm safety net and provide producers with greater certainty while demonstrating unwavering support for strengthening rural communities and safeguarding our food supply,” Boozman said in a statement. 

Farm groups are watching closely, hoping a five-year farm bill will provide some certainty farmers have lacked in recent years.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall called on Congress to “finish the job and deliver a modern farm bill” and urged farmers to contact lawmakers and encourage them to advance the legislation. The Farm Bureau has 5 million members.

The National Farmers Union, which represents about 220,000 family farmers and ranchers, said it is grateful for progress on the farm bill but offered a more cautious response.

“We remain concerned that this proposal does not yet meet the scale of the crisis facing family farmers and ranchers,” NFU President Rob Larew said in a statement. “The path from committee to a final, signed farm bill is long. NFU will continue working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to strengthen this legislation.”

Assembly passes bill to ban soda and candy from SNAP and fund positions to keep error rate low

The entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Stock photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)

The entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland with a SNAP eligibility sign. Up to 3,000 Oregonians who came to the U.S. as refugees, asylum seekers or through other humanitarian protection programs would lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program under new federal rules challenged by Oregon and other states. (Stock photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)

The Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill that will ban Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients from being able to buy soda and candy with their benefits and will provide funding and positions to the state Department of Health Services to help preempt the state from being penalized by the federal government. 

Lawmakers also approved a bill aimed at having the state turn SNAP data over to the Trump administration.

Gov. Tony Evers and lawmakers have been discussing providing additional funding and positions to the state Department of Health Services to ensure the state keeps its payment error rate low, to avoid costly federal penalties enacted as part of a huge national tax cut and spending bill.

A SNAP provision in the federal tax and spending law signed by President Donald Trump last year would penalize states for having a payment error rate above 6%. The Evers administration has estimated a penalty due to the error rate could cost the state up to $205 million. Evers recently urged lawmakers in his State of the State address on Tuesday to provide money to the state agency to keep the error rate low and avoid potential penalties.

Lawmakers attached the money and positions to AB 180 in an amendment. The bill passed 71-22 with 23 Democrats joining Republicans in favor of the bill. 

The amendment included about $69 million and 70 positions for the agency to help ensure quality control of SNAP — also known as FoodShare in Wisconsin — and keep the error rate low.

When it comes to the candy and soda ban provisions, the Wisconsin DHA would need to submit a waiver to the federal government for approval to make the change to the program. 

Under the leadership of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, the Trump administration has pushed for the ban across the country as a part of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved waivers for 18 states, including Idaho and Oklahoma, so far, and there are at least five states that are actively implementing the ban.

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) criticized the bill, saying it “has nothing to do with health,” mentioning he sees people drinking Diet Mountain Dew and other beverages in the Legislature’s chambers, and that the bill is merely “punishing people for poverty.” He also said it is “shameful” to use the candy and soda ban bill to move the money and positions forward. 

“I’m glad that with the amendment there are necessary dollars here that are coming to help our agencies provide dozens of staff members to push back on the onslaught from the Trump regime,” Clancy said. An amendment to the bill includes $3.5 million to help with development and administration of a food stamp platform that is meant to ensure grocery stores can follow the ban. 

Rep. Russell Goodwin (D-Milwaukee) said lawmakers shouldn’t be “policing check-out lanes” and that the bill will create a two-tiered system where poor families have their food choices restricted. 

Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) said that the bill would ensure that taxpayers are not paying the costs of people eating unhealthy foods. 

“The original intent… was to go down a path to start looking at what we’re feeding our children, what we’re feeding our families and what’s that doing to our families,” Moses said, adding that he has been interested in the issue long before the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. 

Moses said “the amount of money that we could lose from the federal government is astronomical” if the bill doesn’t become law.

Under the bill, candy is defined as “any solid, semi-solid, or molded preparation of sugar, sweeteners, whether natural or artificial, or chocolate, with or without added ingredients such as flavorings, fruit, nuts, or flour, that is commonly marketed, advertised, or recognized as candy, chocolate bar, chewing gum, or similar confectionery and includes chocolate bars, including chocolate bars containing flour, hard candies, gummies, caramels, taffy, licorice, mints, and chewing gum.” It does not include baked goods. 

Soda is defined as a “nonalcoholic beverage that contains natural or artificial sweeteners, including soda, pop, cola, energy drinks, sports drinks, or flavored water, or any product, regardless of its ingredients or labeling, that is marketed, labeled, or advertised as a soda, pop, cola, energy drink or energy supplement.” It does not include beverages that include milk or coffee or unsweetened tea.

A separate bill would require Wisconsin to compile and turn over data to the federal government on all Wisconsin FoodShare recipients since 2020 in accordance with a July letter from the federal Department of Agriculture. The Trump administration says it is seeking the data so it can investigate fraud and has threatened to cut off SNAP benefits to states that don’t comply. The Assembly passed the bill, AB 1027, in a 54-39 vote with Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) joining Republicans in favor.

On behalf of Wisconsin, Attorney General Josh Kaul joined a lawsuit with 21 other states to block the order. A federal judge in California recently granted the request for a temporary restraining order.

Rep. Ryan Spaude (D-Ashwaubenon) accused his Republican colleagues of being “happy to take up the bidding of the Trump administration” with the passage of the bill. 

No Republicans spoke on the bill. 

Evers has expressed opposition to turning over the data, saying that Wisconsin’s system works. He told WISN 12 in December that the SNAP system is “analyzed every single year and we feel confident in it.” 

“We have people in the state of Wisconsin that need help making sure they’re having nutritious meals. We feel the program right now is working just fine,” he said. 

Both bills need to pass the Senate before they go to Evers.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

❌