USDA turned down New York’s request to waive SNAP’s three-month time limit for six Bronx community districts, finding that none had the 10% unemployment rate the law now requires, a February 9 letter shows. Only two reservation areas, the Tuscarora Nation and Poospatuck, are waived, and that waiver runs through February 28, 2027. Adults 18 to 64 elsewhere in the state are under the limit unless they qualify for an exemption.
What USDA found in the Bronx
New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance asked for the six districts, which the data group into four areas. The USDA letter reports 12-month unemployment of 8.2% in Community District 5 (Morris Heights and Mount Hope), 8.1% in District 7 (Fordham, Bedford Park and Norwood), 9.0% in Districts 1 and 2 (Melrose, Mott Haven, Longwood and Hunts Point) and 8.8% in Districts 3 and 6 (Morrisania, Tremont, Belmont and West Farms).
OTDA’s request had indicated the districts met the 10% mark, but the federal check found lower rates. In the letter’s words, “none of the six community districts had a 12-month unemployment rate of at least 10 percent.” The figures cover June 2024 through May 2025, and the six districts show up as four rows because the federal data combine some of them.
Ronald Ward, acting administrator of SNAP at USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, signed the letter. It was addressed to Valerie T. Figueroa, OTDA’s deputy commissioner for employment and income support programs, and it is labeled a partial approval of New York’s initial request.
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For adults in those Bronx districts, the denial means the work rule applies in full. New York’s SNAP work-requirements page says adults 18 to 64 without a child under 14 must work or take part in approved training 80 hours a month, or earn at least $217.50 a week, to keep SNAP beyond three months in three years.
The state’s own page describes the backdrop. It says a statewide waiver for certain adults ended in November 2025, which is why the two reservation areas now stand largely alone.
Approved job-skills or training activities count toward the 80 hours, the page says. Once the three months are used up without meeting the rules, the page states, a time-limited participant loses SNAP benefits.
The two reservations that did qualify
The Tuscarora Nation Reservation, at 11.4% unemployment, and the Poospatuck (state) Reservation, at 10.6%, cleared the bar. The waiver for both took effect March 1, 2026, and expires February 28, 2027, about four months from now.
Those two are the only waived areas in the letter. USDA’s waiver page, last updated October 5, lists New York’s fiscal 2026 response dated February 9 and no later New York response.
When the waiver ends, adults in Tuscarora and Poospatuck come under the same three-month limit as the rest of the state unless a new request shows unemployment of at least 10% and USDA approves it.
A waiver does not end tracking. Even in waived areas, OTDA must keep measuring the three-year period and following time-limited participants continuously, the letter says, so the state can reinstate the limit when the waiver expires.
The waiver covers time-limited participants living in the two reservation areas. It does not waive the program’s general work rules, which USDA’s waiver page says remain in force.
The 10% line that decided it
The bar comes from the 2025 budget law. Under Section 10102 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the letter explains, states may seek waivers only for areas with unemployment of at least 10%, apart from separate provisions for Alaska and Hawaii.
The gap to the line in the Bronx was not wide. Districts 1 and 2 came in at 9.0%, within a percentage point, and the lowest area, District 7, was 1.9 points short. The other three areas ran from 8.1% to 8.8%, and the letter treats all of them as short of the threshold.
Federal law sets the penalty. A person is ineligible, the letter says, after receiving benefits for more than three months in any three-year period in which they were subject to the time limit but did not meet it. People once called able-bodied adults without dependents are now called time-limited participants.
Exemptions matter more in places without a waiver. New York’s page lists adults under 18 or 65 and older, adults living with a child under 14, people receiving disability benefits, pregnant adults, people unable to work 80 hours a month for health reasons, people eligible for Indian Health Services and SSI applicants and recipients.
Any new request would need a new 12-month window of data showing 10% or more. USDA’s waiver page lists no New York request for fiscal 2027, though it notes an October 2026 bundle of state requests without breaking out what is in it for New York.
The open question for Bronx adults is whether New York asks again, and whether unemployment in those districts rises enough to count.
Under the SNAP time limit in the Bronx?
An adult in a Bronx district who is not exempt has three months of SNAP before missed work hours end the benefit, and the three-year clock does not pause because New York asked for a waiver.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes the SNAP work-rule time limit and who is exempt, plus a renewal document checklist, a renewal and reporting calendar and a state pack for each of the 51 states, so exemptions and dates sit in one place.
Check the SNAP time limit and exemptions in this renewal organizer →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
