Since 2025, state-level waivers that restrict what SNAP participants can buy — mainly candy and soda — have gained steam. By mid-2026, nearly half of the states had received USDA approval for waivers.
These waivers have happened under the Trump administration as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, which is in part focused on making policy changes to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases.
But state lawmakers’ efforts to restrict what their residents can buy with their food assistance benefits based on nutritional value are not new — and aren’t limited to one political party.
In 2003, Minnesota lawmakers proposed making “junk” foods ineligible for SNAP purchase. The state passed the legislation but required approval from the federal government to take effect. In 2004, under President George W. Bush, the USDA rejected the proposal because of concerns over implementation, inconsistent definitions of what constitutes “healthy” foods and the possibility of stigmatizing SNAP participants, according to the National Agricultural Law Center.
In 2007, a USDA report determined that it would be difficult to create a uniform definition for healthy foods, that implementation of restrictions would be complex and costly, and that restrictions may not change how SNAP participants shop since they could still buy less nutritious food with non-SNAP funds.
New York City’s attempt to ban the purchase of sugar-sweetened drinks with SNAP benefits failed in 2011 when the Obama administration denied a proposal that was part of an obesity-fighting plan from then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then-Gov. David Paterson, both Democrats, NBC reported.
Maine made several petitions under Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, to win approval from the federal government for a waiver to restrict SNAP purchases. Still, his efforts were thwarted in 2016 by the Obama administration and again in 2018 under Trump’s first term.
A change in tune
In 2016, during the Obama administration, a USDA analysis with an undisclosed grocer found that nearly 10% of SNAP dollars in fiscal 2011 were spent on sweetened beverages — the second-highest spending category behind meat, poultry and seafood.
Advocates for the food restriction waivers argue that SNAP — the nation’s largest food aid program — should support healthy eating and not use taxpayer dollars on candy and soda at a time when the rate of chronic health conditions is rising in the United States.
But only Congress has the authority to change what counts as food under SNAP.
Under Trump’s second term in office, the tune officially changed for SNAP food restrictions. The administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., released a report in May 2025 that noted that children receiving SNAP benefits “are more likely to consume greater quantities of sugar sweetened beverages and processed meats compared to income-eligible nonrecipients.”
“We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement last year.
That same year, the USDA started approving state-level waivers, with waivers for Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia taking effect on Jan. 1, 2026.
By August, 23 states had received USDA approval for waivers.
SNAP participants nationwide aren’t allowed to use their benefits to buy alcohol, tobacco, hot and prepared foods, and personal care products. The waivers, which vary by state, allow the exclusion of additional items like candy, soda and energy drinks from SNAP eligibility. Hawai’i’s waiver, for example, bans people from buying soft drinks with SNAP funds while Idaho’s restricts the purchase of soda and candy.
These varying state-by-state approaches — as well as questions around how to determine which products apply to the waivers — have raised implementation concerns in the grocery industry.
An uncertain future
In March, SNAP consumers sued the USDA and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, alleging that the waivers in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia violate the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs administrative law procedures, as well as exceed the statutory authority granted under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008.
In June, a federal district court judge ruled that the USDA exceeded its legal authority when it approved the waivers for the five states. The waivers violate a federal law’s definition of “food” for the SNAP program, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in her ruling. Jackson stated that she was not weighing in on whether waivers could meet state goals of addressing health and nutrition concerns. In her ruling, she noted that the USDA has congressional authority to test certain types of projects aimed at improving health and nutrition through SNAP, but said the USDA did not rely on that section of federal law, which has strict requirements, when approving the waivers.
Jackson said that the USDA “will have to go back to the drawing board to design pilot projects that accord with [federal law]” for those five waivers.
Jackson’s decision “may provide a roadmap for future challenges,” Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP at the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit focused on poverty-related hunger, wrote in a recent blog post.
The ruling could have broader implications for other state waivers since the USDA relied on the same authority when granting all of the waivers, Jennifer Pomeranz, an associate professor at New York University, told Nutrition Insight.
“If USDA does not appeal or loses its appeal, Congress could change the law related to demonstration or pilot projects to expressly permit USDA to pilot projects to waive the definition of SNAP-eligible food,” Pomeranz told the publication.
