More than 15,000 Honolulu households will lose access to food education benefits under a proposed budget by President Donald Trump’s administration.
House Republicans’ budget reconciliation proposal would cut nearly $300 billion from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through 2034.
Among those cuts would be the total elimination of SNAP-Ed, a program that helps teach low-income households how to prepare healthier meals on a budget.
In Hawai‘i, SNAP-Ed is administered through the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, and serves more than 15,000 households statewide, said Jean Butel, CTAHR’s Snap-Ed program director.
Those households, Butel said, would likely lose their benefits should the program be eliminated.
“It opens this hole in the safety net,” Butel said, explaining that SNAP-Ed builds relationships with beneficiaries by reaching out to service providers such as food banks, public housing complexes, and others. Eligible low-income people can attend classes where they can learn to plan and prepare healthier meals, improving their diets and saving money over the long term.
Butel said participants have told her they have seen tangible improvements to their lives following the program: some reported improved blood pressure, or lower cholesterol levels, and more money in their pockets. Participants can even learn how to grown their own food, using seeds bought using SNAP benefits.
These resources, Butel said, can’t easily be replaced, and certainly not for free.
“Yeah, there might be other cooking classes out there,” Butel said. “But are they really for the same people?”
Butel added that terminating the program will also end 13 staff positions at CTAHR.
Butel said Republicans’ justification for the SNAP cuts has been the program’s purported failure to curb obesity. A statement by the Republican House Committee on Agriculture argued that the program has ballooned in cost since 2019, jumping from $60 billion a year to $110 billion, while only 28% of participants earn work income.
“[The budget cuts] ensure SNAP works the way Congress intended it to, by reinforcing work, rooting out waste and instituting long-overdue accountability incentives to control costs,” the statement read.
While Butel said she doesn’t have data on SNAP-Ed’s obesity-reducing impacts, she noted that the program has been found effective, particularly considering its relatively small budget.
“Every dollar spent [on SNAP-Ed] saves four dollars in healthcare costs,” Butel said, adding that SNAP-Ed’s $1.5 million budget this year represents about 0.5% of the state’s total 2025 SNAP funding.
Currently, the Republican proposal has passed the House and awaits further decisionmaking in the Senate. Butel said Hawai‘i’s federal delegation has been vocal in its support of the program, and hoped that Democrats can convince Republicans to find better ways to trim the budget.
On Wednesday, the Senate Agriculture Committee — on which sit neither of Hawai‘i's senators — proposed a series of amendments to the SNAP cuts, paring the $300 million reduction back to a $209 million reduction. However, the SNAP-Ed cut remains unchanged.
