The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or CalFresh, has new federal work requirement eligibility rules that have been in effect since June 1.
These new requirements apply to people between the ages of 18 and 64 who do not have dependents under the age of 14 and do not have a disability and requires them to work or volunteer at least 20 hours a week or 80 hours a month to keep their benefits.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts SNAP by nearly $187 billion through 2034, the largest cut to the program in history.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025, introducing multiple significant changes to Medi-Cal and CalFresh.
Due to these SNAP cuts, participation has dropped more than 6 percent in California, from 5,497,691 in February 2025 to 5,191,672 in February 2026, according to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
CalFresh provides federally funded food assistance to about 5.4 million low-income Californians, and more than 250,000 California adults and their families are at risk of losing their monthly benefits, including more than 150,000 parents of children ages 14 and older, according to research by the California Budget and Policy Center. That number could reach 840,000 for those whose work might be too unstable or unpredictable to meet requirements and who no longer qualify for a work exemption.
Here in Monterey County, CalFresh recipients who are classified as able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) have been granted a temporary exemption from federal work requirements until Oct. 31, due to a federal waiver based on the county’s high unemployment rate of 10.2 percent from January through March 2025. Of the county’s more than 55,000 CalFresh recipients, about 8,700 adults will eventually be affected by the requirement.
Beginning Oct. 31, ABAWD recipients must either work at least 80 hours per month, participate in volunteer work, or be enrolled in a school or a training program. Those who do not meet these requirements will be limited to three months of food assistance.
The Monterey County Department of Social Services is strengthening partnerships with CalWORKs to help recipients access job training, employment services and paid work experience.
Among the other counties waived are Alpine, Colusa, Imperial, Merced, Plumas and Tulare. This means that people who live in these counties do not have to meet the ABAWD work requirement rules and may get CalFresh for longer than three months if they are not working.
Although not necessarily affected by the new June eligibility rules, many families in Salinas Valley and the surrounding areas get help from food distribution programs including Brighter Bites, a nonprofit that delivers fresh produce to families and provides guidance, healthy eating tips and recipes for incorporating fruits and vegetables into their diets.
Brighter Bites operates programs in schools in Kern County, Monterey County and San Diego County, providing 6,625 families with over 844,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables each year.
“Since January 2026, Brighter Bites of Monterey County has given out 6,542 bags or boxes at nine schools to total 102,254 pounds of fresh produce that was either donated or purchased with donated or grant funds,” says Brighter Bites Senior Program Manager for Monterey County, Michelle McCarty. “Some schools received monthly distributions and some bi-monthly for the 1,992 total families that enrolled in our program.”
Within Monterey County, there are nine schools that partner with Brighter Bites, including Mary Chapa Academy in Greenfield that has been a partner for the last two school years.
“One Thursday of each month there are about 125 boxes of produce given out to the families from our school,” Interim Community Liaison at Mary Chapa Academy Monica Almanza says. “These boxes contain a mix of fresh fruits and vegetables including items such as apples, oranges, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli and other seasonal produce plus provided nutrition education materials, healthy recipes, food preparation tips and other information encouraging healthy eating habits for the entire family.”
In Watsonville, a mother of a second grader at H.A. Hyde Elementary School, who prefers to go only by her first name Daniela, says if her family didn’t have SNAP benefits, her family wouldn’t be able to afford food.
“My husband doesn’t make enough, and we still have to buy groceries,” she says.
While the new eligibility work requirements don’t wholly affect her, she shares, “I don’t think that there should be strict rules.”
The Brighter Bites provides the family with a bag of fruits and fresh vegetables every 15 days during the school year.
McCarty added that $4 million was cut from Brighter Bites' budget in 2025 and the program has had to cut back on the number of schools that it’s able to serve.
“We need to make sure that our government and local officials are prioritizing the need to keep our families healthy,” McCarty says.