SNAP Cuts and Childhood Malnutrition: Coming to Western New York?
Key Points
- Langworthy and Tenney voted for the OBBBA repeatedly -- at initial House passage (215-214), on the procedural rule governing final debate (219-213), and at final passage (218-214). It cuts SNAP by $187 billion, the largest cut in the program's history.
- More than 90,000 recipients in NY-23 and nearly 84,000 in NY-24 rely on SNAP; roughly 3 in 10 New York recipients are children.
- More than 180,000 New Yorkers have already lost food assistance. An estimated 10,600 are from NY-23 and NY-24 -- likely an underestimate.
- Once fully phased in, 300,000 NY households will lose SNAP -- roughly 18,000 across the two districts.
- Britain cut child and family welfare by 44% and produced a public health crisis: rickets, scurvy, and malnutrition more than doubled.
- Western New York's health safety net is already under strain -- which makes deep food cuts especially dangerous here.
How Langworthy and Tenney Voted to Cut Food Aid
Last year, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It passed the House by just four votes -- 218 to 214 -- along partisan lines. Among those voting "YES" were Western New York Congressmen Nick Langworthy (R-NY23) and Claudia Tenney (R-NY24). By voting "YES" on the OBBBA, they voted to cut health care and food support from tens of millions of Americans, including tens of thousands of people in their own congressional districts. They voted to cut Medicaid by nearly a trillion dollars and increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion -- with a "t" -- while giving a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the very wealthy.
The OBBBA cut SNAP -- the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly "food stamps" -- by roughly $187 billion over ten years. That is the deepest cut in the program's history. As shown in the graph above, the cuts phase in over four years, with the worst arriving after the 2026 midterm elections. By year ten, SNAP is cut by 18% compared to what the Congressional Budget Office projected without the OBBBA.
It could have been worse. Before the final bill, Langworthy and Tenney had already voted for a House version that proposed cutting SNAP by a third -- $279 billion over ten years. They voted for that version too.
Who Gets Hurt: Western New York's SNAP Recipients
More than 90,000 of Langworthy's constituents and nearly 84,000 of Tenney's rely on SNAP to keep food on the table. Across New York, roughly 3 in 10 SNAP recipients are children. As we reported in our coverage of Langworthy's November 2025 town hall, constituents have repeatedly raised concerns about cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicaid -- concerns Langworthy has brushed aside. As we also reported, Langworthy brushed off thousands of constituents facing health insurance premium spikes under the same bill.
People in their districts are already paying the price. New York State saw a 6.2% drop in SNAP participation between January 2025 and February 2026 -- more than 180,000 New Yorkers losing food assistance, according to state enrollment data. Nationwide, according to the CBPP SNAP Tracker, which draws on USDA data, SNAP participation fell by more than 4.5 million people -- nearly 11% -- between the law's July 2025 enactment and April 2026. That is the steepest drop in nearly three decades.
NY-23 and NY-24 account for roughly 6% of New York's SNAP caseload. Applied proportionally, an estimated 10,600 people across the two districts have likely already lost benefits -- and that is probably an underestimate. Both districts have older populations and higher concentrations of veterans, two groups hit especially hard by the OBBBA's expanded work requirements.
It's Already Happening -- and Faster Than Predicted
Once fully phased in, CBPP estimates 300,000 New York households will ultimately lose SNAP -- roughly 18,000 across the two districts. CBO projects that 2.4 million Americans will lose SNAP entirely in a typical month, with an additional 1.6 million losing a substantial portion of their benefits. CBPP reported in late June 2026 that losses are already running ahead of CBO's projections. The cuts have not fully kicked in, and they are already breaking the models.
Langworthy and Tenney had access to CBO's analysis. They knew 2.4 million Americans would lose food assistance. They voted yes anyway.
The Warning From Britain
We do not have to guess what happens when a government cuts food support from vulnerable families. Another wealthy country already ran this experiment.
After the 2008 financial crisis, Britain chose to close its deficit through spending cuts rather than tax increases. Working-age benefits were frozen. Eligibility rules were tightened. The programs that had kept the poorest families afloat were cut again and again. Food banks, once rare, became a permanent fixture of British life.
The Public Health Consequences: Rickets, Scurvy, and Malnutrition
Researchers at Oxford and University College London found that nearly one in four British children born after the cuts began spent a long stretch of their childhood in poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that roughly a million children were living in destitution -- unable to stay warm, dry, clean, and fed. Hospital wards began recording diseases that belong in history books: cases of rickets, scurvy, and malnutrition more than doubled.
These are the diseases of children who do not get enough food. They are almost entirely preventable. Their return was not unforeseeable. It was a policy choice.
The evidence is not anecdotal. A July 2025 study in BMJ Public Health found that malnutrition admission rates doubled and vitamin deficiency admissions increased more than fivefold in England between 2001 and 2021. The recession ended in 2009 -- but admissions kept climbing after austerity began in 2010. A separate peer-reviewed study found a direct statistical link between cuts in local government spending and rising hospital admissions for nutritional deficiency diseases. Britain did not see more malnutrition because doctors got better at finding it. It saw more malnutrition because more people did not have enough to eat.
Britain cut welfare support for children and families by 44% over eight years and produced a public health catastrophe. The United States just cut SNAP by 17% on average, rising to roughly a third of the program by 2034. Britain's children were already showing up in hospitals with rickets before their government got halfway there.
Western New York Is Not Protected
Western New York is not England -- but it is not protected either. Our health safety net is already under strain. Buffalo went years without fluoride in its drinking water, and childhood cavities climbed as a predictable result. The recent closure of the region's oral and maxillofacial surgery program will make it harder for low-income patients to get surgical dental care. Into that already strained system, Langworthy and Tenney have voted to take food assistance away from tens of thousands of the families they were elected to serve.
Britain has shown us where that road leads. The only question is whether Western New York's representatives will be remembered as leaders who saw the warning -- and voted for it anyway.
