USDA Website Gives Veterans Outdated SNAP Information as Partnership With VA Stalls

WASHINGTON– According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, USDA’s website still suggests veterans are exempt from SNAP’s time limit—even though Republicans took away that protection, putting veterans at risk of losing food assistance. The report on veterans’ access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) also found that USDA has produced no veteran-specific outreach materials in the past five years and that its food security workgroup with VA has not met since April 2025.

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (CA-39) issued the following statement on the report:

“Republicans in Congress took away veterans' exemption from SNAP's time limit, and the Trump administration can't even update a webpage to tell them. Call it what it is: incompetence. The agency that is supposed to lead on veteran hunger hasn't held a meeting with VA since April 2025, and it didn't respond when GAO asked why the agreement hasn't been reviewed. Veterans earned better than this. Congress should restore their exemption, require USDA and VA to work together and report on their progress, and use our oversight to hold USDA to its promise to fix what it tells veterans.”

Background: SNAP is the federal program that helps low-income households buy groceries. Adults who can work and don't have children at home can receive it for only three months in any three-year period, unless they meet a work requirement or another exception. From September 2023 to July 2025, veterans were exempt from that limit. Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill ended the exemption, and veterans now face the same limit as other adults.

GAO found that USDA never updated its eligibility webpage to match. As of September, the page still suggests veterans may not be subject to the time limit. A veteran who reads it and believes it could count on benefits that end after three months. Stakeholders told GAO that veterans experiencing homelessness and veterans in rural areas can have a harder time meeting the work requirement, which makes the wrong information costlier for them. GAO also found that USDA has produced no veteran-specific SNAP outreach materials in the past five years, even though veterans’ groups told GAO they need them.

USDA and VA signed an agreement in September 2023 to work together on veteran food insecurity. That work slowed in April 2025 after key staff were “DOGEd” at USDA. Under the Trump administration, USDA, which leads the partnership, has not held a workgroup meeting since, and the agencies have not done the annual review the agreement requires. VA has kept screening veterans for food insecurity, reaching 4.4 million in fiscal year 2025, but the two agencies are not working together as planned. VA health officials told GAO they are trying to restart the partnership.

The GAO report recommends that USDA update its eligibility page, build SNAP outreach materials for veterans with VA, and put a formal collaboration mechanism in place with VA, and that VA do the same with USDA. VA concurred. USDA generally concurred and said an update to the page is underway.

Read the full report here.

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