This is an update to a primer originally published in 2023 and revised in 2025.
Introduction
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is a crucial part of the safety net in the United States, providing benefits to roughly 42 million Americans per month to maintain a nutritious diet. Following welfare reform in 1996, SNAP became the only truly universal means-tested safety net program in the U.S. In that same year, however, work requirements in SNAP expanded, limiting the efficacy of the program to support all low-income households.
In general, work requirements in means-tested programs are meant to force individuals deemed “work-ready” to increase or maintain their work effort every month by withholding benefits if a person is not working a minimum number of hours, engaged in certain training or education programs, or (for some programs) actively looking for employment.
Since 1996, stringent work requirements for “able-bodied adults without dependents” (commonly referred to as ABAWDs) have been layered over pre-existing (since the 1970s) general work requirements for many working-aged adults receiving SNAP. These “time limit work requirements” take SNAP benefits away from people after they are out of compliance for three months. Proponents of work requirements argue they encourage more people to work, whereas critics say they create barriers to accessing SNAP without meaningfully changing work-related behavior.
There have been recent changes to SNAP work requirements. As part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act in 2023 (the legislation that increased the debt ceiling), the criteria for who is subject to the time limit work requirements changed, as did the rules governing states’ ability to provide individual hardship exemptions from these requirements. And, in the summer of 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made substantial changes to SNAP work requirements as well as other program rules. OBBBA expanded time limit work requirements to include ABAWDs 60–64 and able-bodied parents whose youngest child is 14–17 in addition to ABAWDs 18–54, while exempting certain Native Americans. Given this change we often refer to those who are subject to this requirement as “time limited adults” rather than “ABAWDs.” OBBBA also ended the 2023-enacted work requirement exemptions for veterans, those experiencing homelessness, and youth who recently aged out of foster care. Finally, OBBBA severely curtailed states’ ability to apply for waivers from work requirements for areas with weak labor markets.
In this primer, we describe three components of SNAP work requirements: 1) the general work requirement, 2) the SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) program, and 3) the time limit work requirements, which we and others previously referred to as the ABAWD work requirements. Since much of the recent policy debate and academic literature has focused on the time limit work requirements, we pay particular attention to them. We offer key takeaways to help guide an understanding of work requirement policy, the people subject to work requirements, and features of the labor market in which these SNAP participants work. We provide detailed answers to commonly asked questions about SNAP work requirement policy, and we summarize rigorous research evidence on the efficacy of work requirements and SNAP at encouraging work.
Our conclusion from a review of the literature on work requirements is that the best evidence shows they do not increase employment.
Our conclusion from a review of the literature on work requirements is that the best evidence shows they do not increase employment. Moreover, this research finds work requirements cause a large decrease in participation in SNAP. This is concerning because many SNAP recipients, especially those subject to the time limit work requirements, have little safety net to rely on besides SNAP. Additionally, we discuss evidence that those subject to the time limit work requirements face difficulty meeting the requirements even if they are working or would like to work, because of the types of jobs available to them. Finally, we summarize research that suggests work requirements limit SNAP’s ability to act as an automatic stabilizer during recessions.
While we try to explain clearly what work requirement rules are in law, regulation, and guidance, in practice, the implementation of work requirements strays from these complicated rules. This is even more true for the policy changes and implementation of the rules under OBBBA, where guidance and technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been lacking. Rule complexity, opacity, administrative burdens, inconsistent implementation, and the realities of the low-wage labor market make it difficult to comply with the rules. Consequently, work requirement penalties—losing access to SNAP if one fails to comply—affect more people than if the rules were implemented exactly as Congress intends.
We reiterate that the evidence supports largely or fully eliminating work requirements in SNAP at all times, but particularly during a recession and its recovery.
Authors
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Acknowledgements and disclosures
We are grateful to Aviva Aron-Dine, Jason Cook, Wendy Edelberg, Robert Greenstein, Joseph Llobrera, Catlin Nchako, Dottie Rosenbaum, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Mary Zaki, and particularly Ed Bolen for generous feedback and illuminating conversations. Tia Cole, Elizabeth Cox, Olivia Howard, Asha Patt, Eileen Powell, Isabelle Pula, and Noadia Steinmetz-Silber provided excellent research assistance. We thank Joyce Chen and Marie Wilken for editorial support and Jeanine Rees for graphic design.
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