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NYC grocery stores rely on food stamp sales. Here's what SNAP cuts could mean.
By
Joe Hong
and
Karen Yi
Published Oct 30, 2025
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Karen Yi / Gothamist
By
Joe Hong
and
Karen Yi
Published Oct 30, 2025
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Grocery sales follow a predictable pattern at the Pioneer Supermarket on Willis Avenue in Mott Haven. While they tick along steadily most weeks, manager Marisol Veras says receipts drop 30% toward the end of each month — right around when shoppers run out of food stamps.
“The day you say there’s no food stamps, nothing will get sold,” Veras said in Spanish. She said if 100 customers walk into her store, 85 of them will pay with benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Now, two major disruptions to the program will upend how New Yorkers on SNAP eat and shop, having a devastating domino effect on grocery stores, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, grocers and policy experts said.
The first is imminent. The Trump administration announced it’ll stop monthly SNAP payments starting Nov. 1 because of the ongoing government shutdown. The second is more systemic. President Donald Trump’s tax and spending measure, enacted this summer, expands work rules for SNAP recipients, who will lose their benefits next year if they can’t prove they’re employed.
Together, the impending short-term and longer-term cuts have paralyzed grocers in neighborhoods where food insecurity is already higher than in other parts of the city. Grocers told Gothamist the SNAP fallout will mean they’ll start feeling the pinch in November and may eventually have to lay off staff, offer fewer kinds of items on their shelves, or even shut down. Food retailers in high-poverty areas operate on razor-thin profits and rely on volume — how much they can sell quickly — to keep their doors open.
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“We’re starting to hit the brakes on what we buy, to see what’s going to happen,” Veras said.
Food insecurity in the city has increased substantially since 2018, with the number of SNAP households outpacing overall population growth, a Gothamist analysis found. Today, more than 1 million households in the city rely on SNAP. That number grew by 14% between 2018 and 2025. In contrast, the total population of the city is expected to grow by 3% between 2020 and 2030, according to estimates from the Department of City Planning.
The surge in SNAP recipients has disproportionately affected the grocery-store ecosystems in low-income neighborhoods. In some high-poverty areas, SNAP purchases make up more than half of sales, the National Grocers Association said. Some storeowners say it’s much more.
According to a Gothamist analysis, the new rule changes to SNAP would result in an approximately $360 million loss for New Yorkers and their grocery stores. Food policy experts said cuts to SNAP will have a compounding effect in lower-income neighborhoods, where shoppers could have less money to buy food in areas where prices can be more expensive, costs have already surged due to inflation and where access to healthy food can be scarce.
‘It might put us out of business’
As of 2023, the U.S. Census estimates that the Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven has 60% of households on SNAP, the highest rate among all neighborhoods in the city. According to more recent city data, the total number of households in Mott Haven receiving benefits has increased by 6% since 2023.
Fishmonger Sergio Hector, 38, said he’s in a tricky spot because more than 50% of his sales come from SNAP dollars. And for a small business like his, where he works with his mom, who owns the store, and one other employee, there’s not much wiggle room to make up the deficit.
“That got us kind of scared because it might put us out of business,” said Hector, who manages Mr. N Seafood Market in Mott Haven.
His store opened five years ago and displays a long row of fresh porgy, catfish, mackerel, salmon and fish heads. A colorful mural of a mermaid adorns one wall and a small Honduran flag hangs in a window, honoring where his family and their love of seafood are from. Hector said business is already tough with rising wholesale prices for seafood due to inflation and that he’s already had to adapt.
“ We stopped buying things that are very expensive and we only buy stuff that's selling,” he said. The best sellers, he said, are salmon, porgy, whiting and fish heads.
According to city data, every borough and almost every neighborhood has more households using SNAP today than they did in 2018. Neighborhoods like Flushing and Murray Hill in Queens saw jumps as high as 61% between 2018 and 2025. About 1 in 10 households in that community district relied on SNAP in 2018. By 2023, the U.S. Census estimates that the rate will have increased to about one in six.
Maxi Julio, owner of Mora Bakery, said 80% of her customers pay with EBT cards to buy rice, oil, sugar and eggs. She said if she loses sales, she might have to stock more non-perishable items, like snacks.
“Things that don’t expire, and things that don’t go to waste,” she said in Spanish. Julio also sells cakes, sweets and flowers at her bodega.
Pam Koch, a nutrition education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, said food stores’ responses to the cuts to SNAP benefits could affect their broader community’s health, even for families not on SNAP.
At Pioneer Super Market in Mott Haven more than 80% of customers pay with SNAP.
Karen Yi / Gothamist
“The prepackaged, usually more highly processed, more convenient foods end up being more dominant in the stores. And that just ends up having a ripple effect on the inequities to access to healthy food. And that directly leads to the health inequities that we see across different communities,” she said.
Ripple effects on community
Congressional Republicans and Trump passed a spending measure over the summer requiring new groups of people to meet the work rules, such as those who are homeless, veterans or up to age 64.
New York state has long had a waiver exempting able-bodied people from having to prove employment to get SNAP benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture rescinded that waiver earlier than expected, though it was not required by the new law, and it now expires on Nov. 2. Those who don’t meet the requirements can only receive three months of benefits within three years. That means SNAP recipients who can’t meet the work rules could start losing benefits by March.
Republican members of Congress have said the changes to SNAP encourage people to find work while also rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse.” Gothamist reached out to the White House, the USDA and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who represents Staten Island and parts of South Brooklyn, but received no response.
But the federal government’s own research contradicts the theory that more restrictive work rules for SNAP help those experiencing food insecurity. A 2021 study conducted by the USDA found that tighter work requirements in nine states led to significant drops in SNAP participation without increasing employment or earnings. The declines ranged between 5% and 41%.
Mr. N Seafood Market in the Bronx sells fresh seafood and prepared food but manager Sergio Hector said even though fish prices have increased he charge his customers more because they can't afford it.
Karen Yi / Gothamist
The National Grocers Association estimates that shoppers using the SNAP program annually inject close to $100 billion into the national economy. Stephanie Johnson, the vice president of governmental relations for the association, said the federal changes will reduce the U.S. government’s spending on SNAP by 9%, nearly $10 billion each year.
SNAP benefits averaged about $187 per participant per month in 2024, according to the USDA, or slightly more than $6 a day. That same year, 1.8 million New Yorkers were on SNAP, totaling about $4 billion in benefits issued citywide. A 9% reduction in benefits overall would likely cost city residents, and therefore grocers, over $360 million.
To offset the stoppage in SNAP benefits resulting from the shutdown, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Monday that she would expedite the release of $30 million in funding for emergency meals. That’s in addition to the announcement last week of $11 million that her administration allocated for local emergency food relief.
Without a more permanent solution, however, experts who research food access worry that the declining business for grocers might lead to store closures, which will result in fewer options and less access for residents.
“There's concern that these SNAP cuts will create new food deserts because it'll hurt the business of too many grocery stores,” said Errol Schweizer, former vice president of grocery at Whole Foods, who runs the Substack The Checkout Grocery Update.
Sergio Hector manages Mr. N Seafood Market in the Bronx where he says business is already tough, amid rising prices due to inflation.
Karen Yi / Gothamist
Gina Plata-Nino, the interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center, said federal food benefits don’t just help individuals who receive them. The program also bolsters the food retailers operating in under-resourced communities.
“It’s money that can only be utilized at grocery stores,” Plata-Nino said. “That’s why they’re the biggest beneficiaries of this.”
Grocers are also employers, said Koch, the nutrition professor at Columbia. Restricting food benefits based on the recipient’s employment will ironically shrink the job market in their communities by forcing grocers, especially owners of independent stores, to cut down on staffing, she said.
“There’s been a lot of talk of the concerns for all of the small businesses,” Koch said. “They’re going to have to lay off employees or reduce their payroll, which is going to have a harder effect on the community overall.
Beyond economics, multiple grocers said they feared that the new rules around SNAP will have an indirect impact on public safety. Veras, the manager at Pioneer in the South Bronx, said shoplifting is already common in her store. Less access to food benefits, she said, will likely only worsen the problem. Veras said the store already catches people stealing food almost daily.
"How are people going to act when they don't have money?" Veras said. "What's coming is not going to be pretty."
We want to hear from you! How do you save money when you grocery shop? Send us your answers through this form. Gothamist reporters may contact you to feature you in a future article.
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Joe Hong
Joe Hong is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered K-12 education for several newsrooms across California. His reporting has led to local reforms in juvenile justice system as well as a state law requiring universal screening for dyslexia. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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