Gov. Andy Beshear says more than 80,000 Kentuckians are losing access to SNAP, the food benefit many people still call food stamps. He blames changes in President Trump’s 2025 budget law, and says the total includes 24,655 children and 6,572 seniors. The numbers went out in letters dated Oct. 14.
The governor wrote to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and to Kentucky’s congressional delegation. In the governor’s release, Beshear says the law cut benefits, widened work requirements and shifted costs to the states. He asked federal officials to act so vulnerable people do not go hungry “for reasons beyond their control.”
What the governor says and how many are affected
The letter to Rollins gives the exact count as 80,622 Kentuckians losing SNAP. The release rounds that to more than 80,000. Beshear’s office has not split the total by which rule cost each person their benefits, so the figure is best read as the governor’s overall estimate of the law’s effect.
The drop shows up in the state’s caseload. Beshear says just under 547,000 Kentuckians now receive benefits, down from 627,164 in October 2025, according to reporting by the Kentucky Lantern. The same report says SNAP reaches 286,921 Kentucky households, and the average household gets $346 a month.
Anyone in Kentucky who gets SNAP, or who was cut off in the past year, has a practical question to settle: did a work rule end the benefit, and does an exemption or a new application change the answer? The notice that came from the state is the place to start, because it names the reason and the date.
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Which work rules are behind the cuts
The Lantern reports that in November 2025, veterans, people experiencing homelessness, young adults who recently aged out of foster care and adults ages 54 to 64 lost their exemptions from the SNAP work requirement. That change is part of the 2025 law Beshear is criticizing. It moved a large group of older adults into a rule that used to spare them.
Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services describes the rule in plain terms on its SNAP page. Adults ages 18 through 64 with no disability and no child under 14 at home must work or take part in a training program for an average of at least 20 hours a week. Without that, they can get SNAP for only three months in a 36-month period.
The same page says the requirement applies in all 120 counties as of Nov. 1, 2025. Five counties, Elliott, Lewis, Magoffin, Martin and Wolfe, were exempted starting Dec. 1, 2025. Anyone who lives in one of those counties should check whether the exemption covers them.
States can ask Washington to pause the three-month limit in areas with weak job markets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s waiver status list, current as of Oct. 1, 2026, shows Kentucky among 12 states with a partial waiver. No state has a waiver covering the whole state, and 41 jurisdictions have none at all.
A partial waiver means the time limit is paused only in the listed areas. That is why two Kentuckians with the same age and income can face different rules depending on where they live. The list also notes that waivers are generally approved for 12 months, and that a state can end one early.
Children, school meals and the governor’s argument
Beshear says about 5 million Americans, including more than 1 million children, have lost SNAP benefits since July 2025. He points out that for children, SNAP eligibility connects to free and reduced-price school lunches and summer EBT cards, so a lost benefit can ripple into the cafeteria as well as the kitchen.
Beshear says the state should be fighting hunger, not causing it. The same release notes a 34,000-pound food donation unloaded in Frankfort that week, which will move through Feeding Kentucky to food banks in all 120 counties. The load included canned fruits and vegetables, pasta, flour, pancake mix and dried milk. Food banks can help in the short run, but they do not replace a monthly SNAP deposit.
What a Kentuckian who lost SNAP can do
The state says anyone can start a SNAP application by calling Family Support at 855-306-8959 or applying online at benefind.ky.gov, and benefits begin from the date the application is received. The phone line is staffed Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern, and an application that arrives after hours is dated the next business day. A worker interviews the head of household, and the household should get a notice within 30 days saying whether it was approved or denied. That information comes straight from the Cabinet’s SNAP page.
Some households can get benefits within a few days, such as those with very high rent or utility costs compared with income. A person who was cut off for not meeting the work rule can ask what would count as qualifying hours or an exemption before reapplying. The governor’s figures describe the scale of the change, but the answer for any one household comes from that household’s own case.
Cut off from SNAP in Kentucky and not sure why?
For an adult between 18 and 64 without a disability or a young child at home, the rule is a clock: three months of benefits in a 36-month period unless the work hours or an exemption are on file. Miss a detail, such as an exemption that was never claimed, and a household can lose a month or more of food money.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer lays out the SNAP work-rule time limit and who is exempt, in plain steps a person can follow at the kitchen table. Part 4 covers the 2025 work-rule change specifically, and a Kentucky pack is among its 51 state packs.
Get the SNAP work-rule time limit and exemption guide for Kentucky households →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
