Why the food subsidy SNAP is going to more Long Island families, and not just those in poverty

William Wade, 38, took his place among the meandering column of adults and children clutching reusable grocery bags and shopping carts in a food distribution line outside a Long Island Rail Road station.

While many others picked up fruit, milk and other items on that overcast Thursday afternoon, Wade grabbed several pairs of heavy socks, a winter coat, a box of doughnuts and a handful of other food items at the Lighthouse Mission food distribution in Shirley.

"It’s a hard place to be," admitted Wade, who recently moved to Mastic and is searching for a job in the service industry. "I’ve never been here before."

Wade said he receives about $200 a month in food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though the money often runs dry weeks before the payout arrives. And so, he said, trips to the grocery store often end with more items being taken out of the cart than purchased.

SNAP, the nutritional support program formerly known as food stamps, has long served as a financial pulse of sorts that measures economic hard times. On Long Island, the number of households receiving SNAP benefits has grown robustly since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, as experts say the region faces a cost-of-living crisis that has made housing unaffordable and often made food an afterthought.

Experts say more households are turning to the program. Yet, they are quick to point out that the program is not a panacea for food insecurity in the region.

More affluent households might not meet the low-income federal eligibility requirements for benefits, and the recent changes to SNAP work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents could mean that thousands of Long Islanders could soon lose access to the program. Moreover, SNAP became a political pawn when benefit payouts were disrupted last year during the federal government shutdown — the longest in the nation’s history.

In 2020, on average each month, 59,020 households in Suffolk County used the benefit, while 29,596 in Nassau did. By 2025, Suffolk County had a monthly average of 78,923 households using the program, representing a roughly 34% increase, according to state data. Nassau, meanwhile, saw an average per month of 31,294 households on SNAP — a roughly 6% increase when compared with 2020 figures.

Over the span, 2024 had the highest average total of SNAP households at 110,317 across Long Island, while those figures appear to have plateaued a bit last year at 110,218, according to the data. 

Growing reliance on SNAP

For thousands of Long Island workers, the hunger assistance program and the region’s food pantries have become a frequently tapped safety valve after paychecks have been drawn to next to nothing, with housing, heating, car insurance and other expenses paid out.

"Food insecurity is always an issue because it's always being weighed against other needs," said Pastor Tim Loos of Lighthouse Mission, a nonprofit organization that has several food distributions around Long Island.

Vanessa Baird-Streeter, president and CEO of the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, which is tasked with helping people sign up for SNAP, said the hunger assistance program today amounts to a subsidy people increasingly depend on — albeit one that many earn too much to tap. 

SNAP guidelines stipulate that a family of four with no relative with a disability or 60 and over should have an earned monthly income of more than $4,019 or roughly $48,230 annually, according to state data.

A few decades ago, she said, a middle-class family looking to move to Long Island to try and live the suburban dream could afford rent and food costs, likely never thinking they would need financial support.

"And so those people who may have never thought about a safety net program or a public benefit program before, they are now being faced with having to take advantage of these programs in order to ensure that their family just has, you know, foundational stability," Baird-Streeter said in a phone interview.

Consequently, across Long Island, many of those families, including some who are on SNAP, arrive at the area’s food banks. 

In Nassau County, the average monthly benefit for SNAP users was $269 in September, while it was $339 in Suffolk. The benefit fluctuates with factors such as family size. According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, the typical food cost on Long Island for a family with two working adults and one child is around $11,000 annually.

In April, the median rent for a recently leased one-bedroom apartment on Long Island was about $2,180, according to rental estimates from Apartment List.

More affluent residents seeking help

Local anti-hunger advocates say they are seeing homeless people, struggling veterans and other vulnerable populations at food panties. But more affluent people who live in expensive enclaves, and drive nice cars are also there.

"On Long Island, you have costs being what they are, you could be making what other people might think is a good salary, and still need assistance to get by. It's just $1 doesn't go as far on Long Island as it does in other communities across the country," said Gregory May, director of government and community relations at Island Harvest Food Bank.

At the Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center’s Community Needs Bank, the number of deliveries has grown from roughly 62 households served per week last year to 135 this year.

Staff at the organization, which also redistributes to local food pantries on the North Shore, attributes the growth to the coronavirus pandemic, when changes in SNAP benefits, and rising costs made it more acceptable to seek help with food.

"You may live in a typical suburban home with a white picket fence and the dog and two children; it doesn't mean there isn't food insecurity," said Susan Berman, associate executive director for community engagement at the JCC.

SNAP benefits often go to the elderly and children on Long Island. In September, roughly 42% of people receiving SNAP were considered elderly in Nassau, while roughly 20% were in that age group in Suffolk, according to data from the state. Children represented roughly 19% of SNAP recipients in Nassau and about 31% of beneficiaries in Suffolk. 

For households on SNAP in Suffolk, the median income was $70,330, with a margin of error of about $7,800, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey one-year estimates. The median household income for SNAP recipients in Nassau was $67,315, with a margin of error of about $13,280.

The median household income for SNAP recipients in Suffolk County in 2024 was

$70,330,

according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The same figure in Nassau County was

$67,315

Working families at the pantries

The reality in the numbers plays out every week at Branches Long Island — a nonprofit that has a food pantry.

Situated on a busy stretch of Middle Country Road, volunteers shuffle seven days a week to a growing number of people arriving by car and on foot to get items like milk, cat food and bread. The pantry prides itself on giving meats and other items that might be difficult to get at other facilities.

And so, staff there say they get a mix of people who are homeless, but also a solid contingency of people who are working.

"They have car payments, they have mortgages, they pay rent, they just either maybe got behind, or a spouse is sick, or someone lost a job, things like that. They had a child, and they just kind of fell behind," said Samantha Morales, founder of Branches Long Island.

On a daily basis, volunteers and staff assemble about 100 blessing boxes, a mix of basic nonperishables, fresh fruits, breads and other items.

Morales, who started the nonprofit in her home during the pandemic in 2019, said the growth in demand is a "combination of everyone needing help."

"We're getting more and more people from inflation, from SNAP benefits being cut, from more and more people losing their housing, not having enough housing on Long Island," she said. "All of it has been a part of it."

Ariel Hart was running thin on diapers during the final stretch of her maternity leave when she slipped into the food pantry on a recent Monday afternoon.

"I don't get paid until Friday, and I needed diapers, so I knew I could come here and, without any hassle, they will help me," said Hart, 39, of Port Jefferson, outside of the Branches Long Island pantry.

Hart, who works as a medical assistant and phlebotomist and receives about $780 a month in food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, said the food and other necessities that she can afford don’t go as far as they need to for her large household. 

"With the prices of everything going up, paychecks are not going up, and rent’s going up, utilities going up, I feel like myself, I'm not poor, but I'm not rich, so it's like, what am I supposed to do about what I can and cannot afford?" Hart said.

Shifting SNAP landscape

Even as they help many households bridge the gap, Morales and people working in the food advocacy space are quick to point out that the future is fluid. Places where they source food from are pulling back because of inflation and federal funding cuts. 

Moreover, with the rollout of SNAP changes, she believes more people will begin to trickle in, further stretching already stretched resources.

Previously, the state had received federally approved waivers so that people considered able-bodied and without children could still get benefits without meeting work requirements. But now most of the state can’t continue under the waiver, which means people in that group will have to work, develop a job skill, or volunteer to receive more than three months of benefits over three years.

The changes for the able-bodied adults without dependents, laid out in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, passed under the Trump administration, include an increase in the upper age limit for the work requirement from 54 to 64, and the elimination of temporary exceptions and of people experiencing homelessness.

The shift for able-bodied adults without dependents, which took effect in March, means many could lose benefits by this June, experts say.

On Long Island, 4,854 could lose benefits due to the change, while the figure stands at roughly 21,400 in Suffolk, according to December data from the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance sent to Newsday.

The Health and Welfare Council of Long Island has developed a website to help people affected by the change connect with a job. 

At the Tri Community and Youth Agency in Huntington, students and their parents often are part of the roughly 30 to 80 people who come in every week to the organization's food pantry. Youth, ages 5 through 21, received the nonprofit's tutoring, mentorship and other activities. The pantry remains open to everyone in the community.

Before any of the recent SNAP benefits changes went into effect, "families still had trouble making ends meet," said Debbie Rimler, director of Tri Community and Youth Agency.

"It's not unusual for families to be struggling with — Do I pay the electric bill? Do I pay the rent? Do I put food on the table?”

Newsday's Arielle Martinez contributed to this story.