Robert Abbamondi, Assistant Director, Neighbor Impact
As Assistant Director of Neighbor Impact at the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, I work directly with families across South Jersey who depend on these programs. Atlantic, Cape May, and Cumberland Counties, where my team and I help neighbors seeking SNAP benefits, face unique challenges and have some of the state’s highest food insecurity rates. Changes to SNAP will have devastating ripple effects, deepening hardship for the people and places that need support the most.
College students face impossible choices. The SNAP changes tighten work requirements that students already struggle to meet while balancing their studies. Many campuses lack grocery stores that accept SNAP, forcing students – even those without access to reliable transportation – to travel off-campus for food while juggling academic demands and work requirements that don’t account for the realities of student life. With stricter rules, more students will have to choose between their educations and eating.
Seasonal workers get trapped. In South Jersey, the fishing, farming, and tourism industries have employment patterns that don’t fit rigid federal work requirements. Missing three months of work – even due to seasonal layoffs – triggers a three-year benefit loss. This ignores legitimate employment patterns and punishes workers for economic cycles beyond their control.
Working families face new barriers. The law narrows the definition of “dependent child” to only those under age 14, meaning parents caring for children older than 13 must meet 20-hour weekly work requirements or lose benefits. In my work, I see how this directly affects families: single parents who work part-time while caring for school-age children, or families where a grandparent on SNAP stays home with a child who needs supervision, would lose food assistance not because they stopped working or trying, but because the rules changed around them.
The bottom line: These changes affect working families — not people avoiding work. New Jersey families and businesses deserve better than policies that ignore our economic reality.