Three GOP-led states are moving to strip unhealthy items from their food stamp programs that help low-income Americans afford groceries.
Arkansas became the first state Tuesday to submit a waiver to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking for permission to change its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ban soda and candy.
Separately, Indiana and Idaho announced their intensions to seek similar waivers.
“One-third of our state has diabetes or is pre-diabetic,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) said in a joint press conference with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. “The current system actively encourages and subsidizes unhealthy, highly processed, and addictive products.”
Sanders and Rollins portrayed the effort to change the state’s SNAP as part of a broader push to combat chronic disease in America. Eliminating unhealthy food from SNAP is a top goal of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, led by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
USDA has refused to grant state waivers to modify SNAP in the past, but Rollins said the Trump administration will fast-track the waivers.
Sanders said restricting unhealthy items from food stamps shouldn’t be seen as limiting choices for the nearly 350,000 residents in the state who rely on the program. Instead, she said it’s about ensuring taxpayer money is spent wisely and trying to limit the downstream spending on chronic diseases.
Sanders said the state’s Medicaid program spends at least $300 million each year treating chronic illnesses.
“This is not about taking anything away. This is simply saying taxpayers are no longer going to cover the cost of junk food,” Sanders said.
The waiver proposes to eliminate SNAP benefits for all types of soda for five years beginning in 2026, including low and no-calorie, fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50 percent natural juice, other “unhealthy drinks” and candy, including confections made with flour.
The exclusion will not extend to flavored water, carbonated flavored water or sports drinks.
Arkansas also asked to add rotisserie chicken, which is currently not eligible under the program.
In Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun (R) was joined at a press conference by Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, the newly confirmed head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to unveil sweeping changes to its food stamp program.
“If we want to protect our country against infectious diseases, we need to start by making people healthy again,” Kennedy said. “They changed our food system in this country so that it is poison to us … we can’t be a strong nation if we are not a strong people.”
Aside from the waiver, Braun signed a series of executive orders, including adding work requirements and reinstating income and asset verification for SNAP recipients.
And in Idaho, Gov, Brad Little (R) signed legislation directing the state to apply for a waiver banning soda and candy from SNAP.
“I do recognize the complexities of defining candy and soda, but at the same time this issue is not complex at all. It is actually quite simple: assistance from the government should go toward healthy foods, not foods that cause so many health problems,” Little said in a statement.
Food and nutrition advocacy groups argue there is little evidence that low-income Americans who rely on SNAP are less healthy than the rest of the population. They say everyone should have the same rights to choose their food regardless of income levels.
Trade groups representing beverage and candy makers also criticized the waivers.
The National Confectioners Association called the approach “misguided and not needed,” and noted that only 2 percent of SNAP purchases are candy.
“SNAP participants and non-SNAP participants both understand that chocolate and candy are treats – not meal replacements,” the group said in a statement.
The American Beverage Association, which represents companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and others, said waivers banning soda are punitive efforts that won’t make people healthier.
“If Governor Sanders is serious about making Arkansas healthy again, this would be a comprehensive effort — not one narrowly focused on excluding one population from buying just two sets of products in the grocery store,” the group said.
The beverage lobby also said Kennedy should be focusing his efforts on programs within the HHS jurisdiction. SNAP is run solely by USDA and administered through individual states.
