Older adults on food stamps now face a work clock that used to stop at age 54. Since the summer of 2025, SNAP recipients from 55 through 64 who have no child under 14 at home have to log 80 hours of work, training or volunteering a month. Those who do not can lose their benefits after three months in any three-year stretch.
The change came from the budget law signed on July 4, 2025. A memo to state agencies from the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, signed by Ronald Ward, the acting associate administrator for SNAP, says adults aged 18 to 64 are now subject to the time limit. Before the law, the limit applied only to ages 18 to 54.
Who the age 64 rule now catches
The same memo narrows the parent exception. An adult is excused only when responsible for a child under 14, not a child under 18, so people whose only dependents are teenagers now count. It also removes three exceptions that had been added in 2023, for homeless people, for veterans, and for former foster youth aged 24 or younger.
Pennsylvania’s human services department put the result in plain terms in a September 29 announcement. Covered adults are 18 to 64 without a child under 14, and being a veteran or a current or former foster youth aged 18 to 24 is no longer an exemption.
That leaves a clear first test for any household with a member between 55 and 64. Is that person still under 65, living without a child under 14, and not on one of the exemption lists below? If all three answers are yes, the 80-hour rule applies, and the three-month clock is either running or about to start.
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States were told to rewrite their notices so that people 55 to 64 know they are now covered. Anyone in that age group who has received a letter about work hours, a reporting form or a short-term benefit end date is likely seeing this rule at work.
What counts toward the 80 hours
USDA’s work-requirements page says the standard is at least 80 hours a month, which works out to about 20 hours a week. The hours can come from paid work, unpaid or volunteer work, a work program, a combination of those, or assigned workfare.
The penalty is steep. A person who has to meet the rule and does not loses benefits after three months, according to the same page. To get SNAP back, the person has to meet the requirement for a 30-day stretch or become exempt.
States handle the paperwork their own way. New York’s temporary assistance office, for one, asks recipients to report their hours within 10 days after each month ends, and it says the three-year counting period it had been using ran from October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2026. A caseworker can say how a given state counts the months.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group that tracks the program, describes the limit the same way in its SNAP guide: people ages 18 through 64 are limited to three months of benefits every three years unless they meet the rule or an exception.
The exemptions that can stop the clock
Ages 60 to 64 get a partial break. The USDA memo says they stay exempt from the general SNAP work requirements and from mandatory employment and training, even though they are subject to the time limit. A 62-year-old cannot be forced into a training program, but still has to reach 80 hours or qualify for an exemption.
New York’s list of exemptions from the time limit is a useful picture of what states recognize. It includes being under 18 or 65 and older, living with a child under 14, receiving disability benefits, being pregnant, having a health limit on working 80 hours, and being American Indian. USDA’s memo added Indian, Urban Indian and California Indian exceptions to the federal rules.
Exemptions only help when the state knows about them. A person with a health condition that limits work, or one caring for a grandchild under 14, generally has to tell the SNAP office and may need to supply paperwork. Waiting for a notice to arrive can cost a month of benefits.
Some areas with high unemployment hold separate time-limit waivers. USDA’s waiver page says a waiver does not waive the general work requirements, and the agency’s October 1 list shows 12 states with waivers covering only parts of the state and none with a statewide waiver.
The open question for each household is narrow and personal: whether the person in the 55 to 64 age band is covered, exempt or already on the clock. USDA’s memo and the state SNAP office are the two places that answer it.
Covered by the 80-hour rule at 55 or older, or excused?
A missed hour log or an exemption nobody wrote down can end SNAP after three months. Getting benefits back takes a full 30 days of meeting the rule, and for a person on a fixed income that gap can mean a month of groceries.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer covers the SNAP work-rule time limit and who is exempt, set beside 51 state packs, so the age 64 rule, the child-under-14 test and the 60 to 64 carve-out can be checked against the state that actually runs the case. Its renewal and reporting calendar is built for the dates that keep a case open.
Get the SNAP organizer that spells out the work-rule time limit and who is exempt →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
