The food stamp program was born during the Great Depression as an emergency mechanism to get basic staple foods to families facing widespread hardship. The mission was simple: put real food on the table for people who couldn’t afford it.
Ninety years later, the program looks almost nothing like that. Today, food stamps can be redeemed at more than 250,000 retailers — including a rapidly growing number of stores that bear little resemblance to a grocery, such as smoke shops and liquor stores. For decades, the rules governing what those retailers actually had to offer their customers were so weak that the program’s core purpose was quietly forgotten or ignored.
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That has changed under President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. On May 7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture strengthened the stocking standards for food stamp retailers. It is exactly the kind of reform this program has needed, and exactly what Congress intended, for a long time.
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Food stamp-authorized retailers accept more than $90 billion a year, or $236 million a day, in taxpayer dollars. In return, they have been required to stock as few as 12 distinct staple food items across four categories: protein, dairy, grains, and fruits or vegetables. That is three varieties per category, three units of each. A store could check the box with a handful of canned goods and a few bags of chips and get taxpayer-funded food stamps. Stores weren’t required to stock fresh, perishable food in most categories — meaning families who relied on those stores might have nowhere nearby to find a piece of fruit, a carton of milk, or a cut of meat. The result, over time, is worse health outcomes for food stamp users.
Congress recognized this problem and directed USDA to fix it more than a decade ago. But the agency didn’t fully act. The result was a program through which thousands of retailers collected taxpayer dollars while offering the families this program is supposed to serve a selection that would embarrass most gas stations.
The new rule closes those gaps in meaningful ways. Retailers will now be required to carry seven varieties in each of the four staple categories — more than doubling the previous threshold. The number of perishable varieties required will increase from two to three, pushing retailers toward the fresh foods that make the greatest nutritional difference. And the rule refines how food categories are defined, ensuring products are classified in ways that actually reflect how families cook and eat. Soy milk, for example, will now be treated as a dairy substitute rather than filed under fruits or vegetables — a commonsense fix that matters for families making real purchasing decisions.
Congress created the food stamps program with the express goal “to raise levels of nutrition among low-income households.” Low-income families and individuals with disabilities who rely on food stamps should be able to shop at an authorized retailer and actually find the ingredients for a meal. Thanks to Secretary Rollins, now they can.
The rule also matters for the Trump administration’s fight against fraud. Since the start of the Trump administration, USDA has taken action against nearly 3,200 retailers for failing to meet even the old, weaker stocking requirements. That number reflects a deeper reality: a program operating at 250,000 retail locations, with minimal stocking standards and inconsistent enforcement, creates fertile ground for waste, fraud, and abuse. Retailers that aren’t in the business of selling real food have no business accepting food stamp benefits. A program that can’t distinguish between a grocery store and a liquor store is asking for trafficking and misuse.
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Some will worry about the burden on small retailers, particularly in rural areas or communities with few options. But the baseline expectation, that a store accepting federal nutrition dollars should actually stock nutritious food, is common sense. It is the minimum that families depending on this program deserve.
The food stamp program has drifted far from the staple-food mission it was built on. Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration are bringing it back and following the laws passed by Congress. After more than a decade of waiting, families on food stamps are finally getting higher-quality, healthier food.
Averel Meden is a senior fellow for Federal Affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
