A federal work rule tied to food stamps is forcing a hard choice on hundreds of thousands of lower-income adults, including many in their late fifties and early sixties: log at least 80 hours a month of work or an approved activity, or lose benefits after three unmet months. The requirement falls on able-bodied adults without dependents, a group Congress expanded in 2025 to reach people up to age 64. For recipients whose current counting period closes September 30, the late-summer weeks are the last chance to document the hours.
How the 80-hour monthly work rule now works
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, still widely called food stamps, requires able-bodied adults without dependents — known in the program as ABAWDs — to complete 80 hours a month of qualifying activity. Paid work counts, but so do job training, enrollment in an education program, and volunteering, and the hours can be combined across more than one source. Someone piecing together part-time shifts and a training course can meet the threshold if the combined total reaches 80 in the month.
The rule is not new in concept, but its reach is. Time limits on benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents have existed for decades, yet the 2025 changes pulled millions more people into the requirement by lifting the age ceiling and tightening who can be waived. That expansion is why recipients who spent years treating food assistance as stable are suddenly subject to a monthly hours test they may not know applies to them.
The consequence for falling short is strict. An ABAWD who does not meet the rule can receive only three months of benefits within a 36-month period, after which coverage stops. The Food and Nutrition Service administers the requirement, and the 2025 law both raised the top age from 54 to 64 and pared back several of the exemptions states had relied on.
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Who is still exempt from the ABAWD requirement
Exemptions still exist, and they matter because they decide who is spared. People under 18 or over 64, those who are pregnant, and anyone living in a household with a dependent child are outside the rule, as are individuals a medical provider certifies as unable to work. The federal implementation guidance spells out how the expanded age band and narrowed carve-outs take effect across the states.
Recent law also reshaped exemptions for specific groups. Protections that had covered veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults aging out of foster care were altered, and states lost some of the geographic waivers that once excused recipients in high-unemployment areas. The result is that many people who were exempt a year ago now have to track hours for the first time, often without realizing the clock has started.
Verification is its own hurdle. Meeting the 80 hours is one thing; proving it to a caseworker is another, and recipients generally must supply pay stubs, employer letters, or training records on the state’s schedule. Someone who genuinely worked the hours can still be dropped over a documentation gap, which is why advocates urge people to keep and submit records well before a review date rather than after a warning notice arrives.
The activities that count are broader than a traditional job, which gives some recipients a path they may overlook. Approved workfare, a state employment-and-training program, and even self-employment hours can satisfy the requirement, and states are supposed to connect ABAWDs with qualifying slots rather than leave them to find hours alone. Whether those slots exist in sufficient number, particularly in rural areas, is one of the practical gaps that caseworkers and advocates flag most often.
The three-month clock and the September 30 cutoff
The three allowable months are counted inside a fixed 36-month window, and for a large share of recipients that window ends September 30, 2026. State agencies such as New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance have warned that adults who already used their three months during the period risk losing benefits when it closes if they are not meeting the 80-hour rule or holding a valid exemption.
Losing benefits is not necessarily permanent. A person cut off can regain eligibility by completing 80 hours of work or approved activity within a 30-day stretch, or by qualifying for one of the exemptions. But re-establishing coverage takes paperwork and time, and any gap lands directly on a household’s grocery budget in the weeks it takes to restore the benefit.
The numbers give the deadline its weight. Federal projections tied to the 2025 law estimated that the expanded work rules would move a large share of adult recipients out of the program over time, and analysts have put the population newly subject to the requirement in the millions once the higher age ceiling fully phases in. Even a modest share failing to document hours by the period’s close would translate into a wave of terminations concentrated in a single month.
The uneven part is geography. Because states carry out the rule on different schedules and still hold some waivers, two people with identical circumstances can face different deadlines depending on where they live. The unresolved question heading into the fall is how many recipients will document the hours in time, and how many will learn the counting period closed only when a benefit that was there in September is gone in October.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against primary sources by The Money Overview editorial team.
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