A sweeping change to federal food aid is reaching a group that rarely expected to be caught by work rules: older adults, veterans, and family caregivers. The tax-and-spending law enacted in July 2025 rewrote the requirements that govern who must work to keep Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and it did so by pulling away exemptions that had shielded millions of people for years. For adults in their late fifties and early sixties, the practical result is a new obligation to log work hours or risk losing benefits through a strict time limit.
The 80-hour time limit that now reaches more adults
SNAP has long imposed a special rule on able-bodied adults without dependents, a category the government abbreviates as ABAWD. Under that rule, a person in the category can receive benefits for only three months in any three-year period unless they meet a work requirement of at least 80 hours a month, according to the USDA Food and Nutrition Administration. Those 80 hours can come from paid work, unpaid work, volunteering, or an approved employment and training program.
What changed is the size of the group subject to that clock. The law widened the population that must document hours every month, and it did so at the same time that it tightened the exemptions that used to let people out of the requirement entirely. The combination is what pushes more older adults toward the three-month cutoff.
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Why the age band now runs to 64
For years the ABAWD rule stopped applying once a person turned 54. The new law raised that ceiling to 64, meaning adults through age 64 must now satisfy the work requirement unless another exemption applies. That single shift sweeps in a large slice of the pre-retirement population, including people who left the workforce early, are between jobs, or are managing health problems that fall short of a formal disability determination.
Adults 65 and older remain outside the requirement, as do people who are medically certified as unable to work. The gap that opened is the stretch of years just before Medicare and full retirement, when many people have the least stable employment and the fewest protections.
The exemptions veterans and caregivers lost
The most consequential piece for the groups named in the headline is the removal of blanket exemptions. Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth had all been exempt from the ABAWD time limit as a matter of policy. Under the revised statute those automatic protections were eliminated, so a veteran who cannot show 80 monthly hours must now qualify under a different exemption or face the same three-month limit as anyone else.
Caregivers were narrowed rather than eliminated. Previously, a parent or caregiver living with any child under 18 was exempt. The exemption now reaches only households where the youngest child is under 14, which means caregivers of teenagers aged 14 to 17 are expected to meet the work requirement. Grandparents raising older grandchildren are among those affected by that change.
How the benefit actually disappears
The loss does not arrive as a single dramatic notice. It works through the clock. A person in the ABAWD category who does not report qualifying hours, and who does not fit an exemption, exhausts the three-month allotment and then loses eligibility until they either meet the requirement for 30 days or become exempt again. The agency’s ABAWD policy guidance describes a counting process that depends heavily on paperwork, which is where eligible people often stumble. Missing documentation, not a lack of work, is a common reason benefits stop.
Certain circumstances still pause the clock. Pregnancy, participation in a drug or alcohol treatment program, and physical or mental limitations that prevent work can all provide an exemption, and states retain a limited number of discretionary exemptions to distribute. The burden of proving those circumstances falls on the recipient.
Uneven timing across the states
The statutory changes took effect July 4, 2025, but the pace at which households feel them varies. States are updating eligibility systems and case-processing rules on their own timelines through 2026, and some areas that previously carried waivers tied to high unemployment are seeing those waivers narrowed as well. That patchwork means two people in similar situations can hit the new rules months apart depending on where they live.
For older adults, the safest course is to confirm status directly with a state SNAP office rather than assume that a past exemption still holds. A veteran, a caregiver of a teenager, or an adult in their late fifties who received benefits without ever tracking hours may now be inside the time limit without realizing it, and the surest way to keep food assistance is to document qualifying activity or a current exemption before the three-month count runs out.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team.
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David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
