Cumberland County is slowly determining the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed last month.

The legislation, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, includes federal spending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The cuts will total $186 billion through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan budget and research arms of Congress.

Under the new law, North Carolina is responsible for an additional $436 million a year to maintain SNAP, according to a July briefing from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services shared with CityView. 

Over 1.4 million North Carolinians receive SNAP, according to NCDHHS. More than 33,700 households in Cumberland County received SNAP benefits in May, according to the Cumberland County Department of Social Services. Another 3,364 applied for the benefits.

Lawmakers are debating how to cover the extra costs amid a decrease in revenues projected by the fiscal research division of the General Assembly. The state will also pay most of the costs of Hurricane Helene recovery, according to WRAL. 

Since many of the cuts do not start until October 2026, House Speaker Destin Hall told NC Newsline that the General Assembly “probably wouldn’t address them until next year.”

Brenda Jackson, director of Cumberland County’s Department of Social Services, expects county governments to foot much of the bill. She said Cumberland County will likely need to pay an additional $2.8 million per year in administrative costs, bringing its total to $8.7 million. The county could also need to pay $31 million per year to meet its share of benefit costs.

“Our legislators have tough decisions to make,” Jackson said during this month’s Social Services Board meeting. “I can’t imagine North Carolina being able to pick up the full tab. So I do believe that there will be some expenses that will be, if not all, passed down to the counties.”

Jackson said the social services department, with the help of Cumberland County Manager Clarence Grier, is already drafting what will likely be a neutral budget for the next fiscal year to prepare for the increased costs.

Where do the cost increases come from?

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act halved the federal government’s contribution to SNAP’s administrative costs from 50% to 25% starting October 2026. Jackson said North Carolina has for years passed most of the administrative costs to counties; the briefing from NCDHHS shows that the state’s 100 counties would be responsible for $67 million in additional administrative costs compared to the $16 million in new costs paid by the state.

“That’s not the worst piece of it, though that’s bad,” Jackson said to Social Services Board members on July 30.

New benefit cost-sharing requirements that go into effect in October 2027 also concern Jackson. For the first time, states would need to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits if they’re above a 6% error rate. SNAP error rates measure how accurately a given state determines and distributes a person’s benefit amount. The more often a state underpays or overpays a beneficiary, the higher its error rate.

The breakdown of payment percentages and error rates is as follows, according to the act:

  • States with error rates less than 6% do not need to pay for any portion of SNAP benefits.
  • States with error rates between 6% and 8% must pay 5% of the total benefits distributed to residents.
  • States with error rates between 8% and 10% must pay 10% of benefits distributed.
  • States with error rates over 10% must pay 15% of the benefits.

In 2024, North Carolina had an error rate of 10.21%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meaning it will have to pay for 15% of the total cost to distribute benefits to its residents. Twenty other states are in the same situation.

Fifteen percent of the total benefit costs distributed by North Carolina is about $420 million per year, according to the NCDHHS briefing. Jackson said state legislators could decide to spread that cost across the counties. She added that the state can apply for waivers to push back the start date for the cost-benefit sharing payments, and that legislators will likely do so.

“There’s just going to have to be a lot of advocacy and a lot of decisions that the North Carolina General Assembly is going to have to make,” Jackson said. “And the only thing we can do at this point is try to stay on top of it and look at the areas in which we maybe have to do some advocacy around.”

CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.