WASHINGTON — The debate over SNAP spending is heating up.
Fast-food restaurants, with California accounting for a major share, have received more than $524 million in taxpayer-funded payments through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the past three years, according to estimates cited by a group of lawmakers.
SNAP benefits are generally meant to help low-income Americans buy food and drinks for preparation and consumption at home. But the program’s Restaurant Meals Program component, a k a RMP, has broadened in a number of states since around 2019, making it easier for eligible recipients to use benefits at chains including Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC and Dairy Queen.
“SNAP is intended to feed hungry families with nutritious food, but loopholes have funneled half-a-billion dollars to burgers and fries,” said US Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is leading eight lawmakers in pressing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to take another look at the RMP program.
“I’m fed up with this fast-food feasting, so I’m partnering with the Trump administration to improve the menu by adding healthy options,” she told the Post.
“The ‘N’ in SNAP stands for ‘nutrition,’ after all, not nuggets.”
The lawmakers are asking HHS and the USDA to review whether the Restaurant Meals Program needs stronger standards that would steer more benefits toward healthier dining options.
“What was originally intended as a narrow accommodation for individuals unable to store or prepare food, the program has grown and is now dominated by large national fast-food and quick-service chains,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in a Thursday letter to Kennedy and Rollins.
“As USDA and HHS continue advancing efforts to address diet-related chronic disease through the MAHA initiative, it is worth examining whether the current RMP structure reflects those same priorities.”
There are currently nine states enrolled in SNAP’s restaurant program: New York, California, Arizona, Michigan, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia and Maryland.
Of those, California was responsible for the bulk of the government-fueled fast-food spending tabulated between June 2023 and May 2025, clocking in at $475 million. It was followed by Arizona at $41.4 million and New York at $.3.6 million.
State participation in the program had shifted over recent years. In 2003, 19 states enrolled in the program but only four by 2018, according to the lawmakers.
By 2019, that began to shift in the other direction, with California expanding restaurant eligibility, which had been limited to a few counties, to a statewide phenomenon, with more than 5,800 restaurants involved in RMP.
Several other states got back on the RMP bandwagon, too, which also helped boost the restaurant industry in those states.
RMP’s roots date back to the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, which created a carve-out to permit individuals without adequate food storage or cooking opportunities to get help buying meals. It wasn’t called RMP at the time that law was passed.
Ernst was joined by US Reps. Ben Cline of Virginia, Beth Van Dune of Texas, Randy Fine of Florida, Brandon Gill of Texas, Daniel Webster of Florida, Michael Cloud of Texas and Mike Kennedy of Utah in the letter.
A rep for USDA told The Post that the department is “firmly committed to conducting rigorous integrity reviews across all USDA programs that serve our Nation’s most vulnerable individuals.”
