“One Big Beautiful Bill” would offer a few benefits for Mississippi – but inflict lots of pain

Part 1 in a series: Title 1

In this series, The Mississippi Independent explores how House Bill 1 would affect state residents for better, worse, or in ways we do not yet fully understand.

Despite its name, the massive federal budget reconciliation package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May would have some ugly impacts for Mississippians, particularly those who live paycheck to paycheck.

President Donald Trump has called the legislation, which is now before the Senate, “big” and “beautiful,” and framed it as a cure-all for inflation, runaway spending and bureaucratic bloat.

At its core, it pairs major tax cuts that primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy with deep spending cuts to programs millions of people rely upon, including:

• Medicaid

• SNAP

• Student aid

• Energy subsidies

• Climate funding

• Farm programs

Few areas of domestic policy are left untouched.

The bill has sparked controversy because it would add trillions to the national deficit. There has also been criticism of its sweeping measures, which is not limited to progressives. Public health experts, nonpartisan budget analysts and some red-state officials have raised alarms that it would strip health coverage from millions, gut food assistance, and shift financial burdens onto the very states least able to absorb them — states like Mississippi, where public need already outpaces available resources.

So, where are we in the process?

The House approved the bill in late May, largely along party lines. Because it is a reconciliation bill, it will bypass the usual 60-vote threshold in the Senate and can move forward with a simple majority — making it a powerful tool for sweeping policy change.

The legislation is under review in the Senate. Committees including Finance, Agriculture, and HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) are combing through it line by line. Democrats — including senators Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden — have voiced strong opposition and are preparing amendments to blunt some of its more extreme provisions. Even within GOP ranks, cracks are showing. Mississippi’s Sen. Roger Wicker has warned that deep, indiscriminate cuts to domestic programs threaten national security and rural infrastructure. There has been pushback against its “slash-first” budget approach.

What happens next? The Senate can revise the bill or rewrite whole sections. If the result passes that chamber in any form, it heads back to the House for another vote. It’s important to note that since reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, even a narrow Senate majority could send it straight to the President’s desk.

That’s why this moment matters. If the bill stalls or changes, the version that passed the House is more than just policy; it’s a roadmap of current GOP priorities. These proposals may not all survive, but the priorities they represent will likely reappear in future budgets, state-level legislation or executive actions. The playbook is already written.

Title I’s biggest takeaway: SNAP is under the knife.

The first section of the bill — Title I, overseen by the House Committee on Agriculture — focuses on food and farming. But when you strip away the technical language, one thing becomes clear: Its deepest cuts fall on the people who rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Let’s break down what the bill proposes and what it could mean for Mississippi.

Freezing SNAP benefits, no matter the cost of food

One of the more sweeping changes in the bill would lock in the Thrifty Food Plan — the formula the USDA uses to determine how much assistance families receive through SNAP. Under this proposal, updates to that formula could only happen once every five years. Even then, the bill explicitly prohibits any update that would raise benefit amounts, even if grocery prices continue to rise.

In plain terms: SNAP benefits would stop adjusting for inflation. If the cost of milk, eggs or chicken jumped tomorrow, families would not see a dime more in help. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this would cut SNAP by nearly $300 billion during the next decade — the largest reduction in the program’s history.

In rural Mississippi, this would slam down like a hammer. As of 2023, more than 420,000 Mississippians — about one in seven people — depend on SNAP to put food on the table. The state’s geography makes the harm even more acute. Mississippi has some of the highest rates of “food deserts” in the nation, especially in the Delta, home to 22 of the state’s 82 counties that have areas where residents live more than 10 miles from a grocery store. Across the state, 70 percent of SNAP-receiving households have to travel more than 30 miles to reach a grocery store.

SNAP already falls short of covering a full month of groceries for most households. Under this proposal, that gap would widen and the consequences would be most visible in checkout lines, at food pantries and in empty refrigerators across the state.

Raising the work bar—but not the job count

Under current federal rules, most SNAP recipients aged 18 to 49 without dependents must meet strict work requirements to receive benefits. This bill would raise that cap to 65, meaning that older adults (many of whom have chronic health issues, disabilities or limited job options) would be forced to meet employment criteria or lose access to benefits.

It’s a cruel ask in a state like Mississippi, where the labor market is limited even for younger workers and where older workers often fall through the cracks. The jobs simply aren’t there. Mississippi has the lowest labor force participation rate in the country with just over 53 percent as of early 2025. That number dips even further in rural and post-industrial counties, where economic opportunities dried up decades ago and never returned.

Right now, SNAP households with adults over 50 receive an average of just $6 a day. It’s not much — but for many, it’s the only guarantee of a meal. This proposal would force thousands of older Mississippians to either navigate bureaucratic work-reporting systems or go hungry.

Geography becomes a disqualification

One of the most quietly devastating changes in the bill is a proposal to gut state flexibility around SNAP work requirements, particularly in high-unemployment areas. Right now, states like Mississippi can request waivers that exempt certain counties to ease SNAP work requirements. These waivers are lifelines, especially in places where there are no local employers, no bus routes or no child care centers.

The House-passed bill would gut this flexibility by raising the waiver threshold to 10 percent. That’s a threshold virtually no Mississippi county meets, even in times of economic crisis. (For context: Mississippi’s statewide unemployment rate in early 2025 was around 3.7 percent and currently sits at 4 percent)

Without these waivers, thousands of Mississippians — particularly in the Delta, the hill country and parts of the Pine Belt — would lose access to SNAP. This would happen not because they’re unwilling to work but because there’s no work available, and they have limited ways to get to it even if there were. In 2023, at least 74 of 82 counties were covered by a waiver from the Mississippi Department of Human Services. This provision would strip that authority and impose a one-size-fits-all mandate on some of the poorest, most underserved counties in the country.

Not all cuts: What the bill claims to give rural America

Not every line of Title I is aimed at cuts. Tucked between the benefit freezes and compliance traps is a subtitled section labeled “Investment in Rural America.” For Mississippi communities, there are a few provisions that sound genuinely promising … at least, on paper.

This section proposes new funding and expanded authorities for a handful of programs that could offer real relief if implemented well:

• $1 billion for rural broadband buildout, aimed at finally closing the digital divide in communities where kids still sit in fast food parking lots to do homework.

• Grants for small meat processors and regional food hubs, which could strengthen local food supply chains and reduce dependence on national distributors.

• New direct funding for rural water and wastewater infrastructure projects, with priority given to towns struggling to meet EPA compliance.

• Support for beginning farmers and socially disadvantaged producers, including access to credit, technical assistance and conservation incentives especially meaningful in a state where land ownership has long been entangled with racial inequity.

On their face, these are smart investments. Mississippi has been underfunded and overlooked for decades when it comes to basic infrastructure. Broadband gaps persist in 26 percent of the state’s rural census blocks and nearly 60 percent of the drinking water systems across Mississippi have committed environmental violations in the last three years.

Mississippi’s rural infrastructure has suffered from decades of disinvestment, and many of its farmers and food producers operate on razor-thin margins. Expanding broadband, fixing pipes and boosting local agriculture could all move the needle if the money flows where it’s needed.

Despite the bright spots proposed, here are two things to keep in mind: First, none of this money is guaranteed. Though the bill authorizes funding, that will depend on future appropriations, implementation by federal agencies, and competitive grant programs that tend to favor systems with professional grant writers, lobbyists or matching funds. Many of Mississippi’s smallest towns and cooperatives don’t stand a fighting chance in those arenas.

Second — and this part can’t be overstated — these rural investments do not undo the damage caused by the cuts to SNAP and other safety net programs. When families lose grocery money, they buy less local produce, shop less at regional markets and rely more heavily on emergency food assistance. For every dollar spent at the grocery store through SNAP, about $1.50 is generated in local economic activity, including for farmers, retailers and transporters. Cutting those benefits while offering distant, competitive grant opportunities is a policy contradiction that rural communities can’t afford. Food systems are not isolated; they’re interdependent. You can’t strengthen the roots while cutting the water supply. So, while acknowledging the upside, we can’t ignore the trade-off. This bill offers a handful of lifeboats in a storm of policy that threatens to drown the very people it claims to help.

A taste of what’s coming next

Title I of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” gives us a preview of a two-tiered approach: squeeze working-class families through benefit restrictions and red tape, while dangling infrastructure investments just far enough out of reach. For Mississippi, that means real risks and small, conditional promises.

In the next installment, we’ll shift from food policy to healthcare, unpacking Title IV’s dramatic proposed changes to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and public health funding. It’s not just about the dollars; it’s about whether your local hospital can stay open, whether your prescriptions get filled, and who gets left behind when care becomes conditional.