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What is the 2025 Thrifty Food Plan and how does it affect SNAP benefits?
Executive Summary
The 2025 Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) is the USDA’s updated benchmark for a nutritious, low‑cost market basket that sets the ceiling for maximum SNAP allotments and is updated monthly using the Consumer Price Index; a reference family of four’s monthly TFP cost is about $993–$994 and individual age‑sex costs range from roughly $111 to $317 per month [1] [2]. Recent federal changes require cost‑neutral updating and CPI indexing beginning in 2025, which federal analyses and advocates say will reduce SNAP spending over the coming decade and reverse much of the 2021 benefit increase [3] [4].
1. What advocates, agencies, and reports all say the TFP actually is — and why it matters
The Thrifty Food Plan is the USDA’s legally mandated, nutrient‑based market basket that defines weekly food quantities for each age‑sex group and translates those quantities into dollar costs using current market prices; law requires the June TFP cost for the reference family to set the maximum SNAP allotment for the following fiscal year beginning October 1 [5] [1]. The 2025 revision produces per‑person monthly costs ranging from about $111 for a 1‑year‑old to roughly $317 for a teenage male, and yields a reference four‑person family total near $993–$994 per month — figures the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) uses to calculate the program’s maximum benefit levels [6] [2]. The TFP’s role as the regulatory ceiling makes it the primary lever for changing benefit amounts without altering eligibility rules.
2. How the 2025 update changes the mechanics of SNAP benefit calculation
Under the 2025 procedures, the TFP will be updated monthly via the Consumer Price Index, and the June TFP cost will continue to establish the maximum SNAP allotment effective each October; SNAP allotments for households are then adjusted by statutory percentage modifiers (for example, a standard add or subtract factor for household sizes) to produce household‑level maximums [1] [5]. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and related statutory language constrained re‑evaluations and mandated CPI‑based annual adjustments, moving away from the broader 2021 re‑evaluation methodology that recalibrated the market basket itself, and thereby freezes the market‑basket design from further upward reappraisals before October 1, 2027 [3]. That structural change converts future increases into indexation rather than periodic comprehensive market‑basket redesigns.
3. Numbers and federal budget projections: who stands to lose and by how much
Analyses produced around the 2025 changes estimate substantial federal savings and declines in benefit levels over the coming decade. The Congressional Budget Office projected a roughly $37 billion reduction in SNAP spending over ten years under cost‑neutral updating, with an average monthly decline of about $15 per person by 2034 — projections based on the CPI indexing approach mandated in 2025 [4]. Researchers modeling the policy estimated that reversing the 2021 re‑evaluation would reduce the maximum monthly SNAP benefit and could increase poverty measures by nearly 6 percent, affecting more than 2.1 million people including approximately 855,000 children, should benefits be cut to pre‑2021 levels or tracked only to inflation [7].
4. The policy debate: cost‑neutral updating versus periodic re‑evaluation
Proponents of CPI‑based updates frame the change as a return to the pre‑2021 routine and assert the indexing approach stabilizes benefit growth against transient market volatility [8]. Critics argue the cost‑neutral requirement and the prohibition on frequent market‑basket reassessments prevent SNAP from reflecting changing food prices, dietary guidance, and market realities, effectively making the benefit ceiling lag behind actual costs and dietary needs [4] [3]. The 2021 TFP re‑evaluation raised benefits by about 21 percent, an increase credited with lifting millions out of poverty; reversing or constraining such re‑evaluations is central to controversy because it shifts how promptly benefits respond to structural changes in food markets [4].
5. Who bears the brunt: households, children, states, and administrative tradeoffs
Modeling indicates that benefit reductions are not uniformly distributed: larger families, households with children, and states with higher food‑price growth face sharper real‑term losses because CPI indexing can mask regional price differences and changes in food‑type costs included in a comprehensive market‑basket. Some states may consider administrative responses, such as opting for targeted programs or operational changes, but federal law governs SNAP allotment ceilings, limiting states’ ability to fully substitute lost purchasing power [7] [5]. The 2025 law also includes new work requirements and funding changes that may interact with the benefit ceiling, potentially reducing caseloads and program expenditures beyond the direct TFP effect [8].
6. Open questions, timing, and what to watch next
Key outstanding issues include how monthly CPI updates will be operationalized at the state and household level, whether subsequent market‑basket re‑evaluations will be permitted before 2027 under regulatory interpretation, and how the combined effect of benefit ceiling changes and other 2025 program provisions will play out in poverty statistics and food‑security surveys over the next two years [3] [9]. Watch for FNS monthly TFP postings, updated CBO cost estimates, and state‑level program responses; these sources will show whether the aggregate federal savings projections materialize and how many households experience meaningful declines in purchasing power relative to actual local food costs [2] [4].