Cuyahoga County grocery stores are bracing for — and in some cases already reporting — lower sales as a result of cuts to the federally funded SNAP program, according to a recent survey of local store managers and owners.
This summer, students at Case Western Reserve University interviewed staff at 26 food retailers in areas with a high SNAP participation, including 20 store managers and 17 cashiers. Many were in the city of Cleveland or East Cleveland.
Nearly 60% of the store managers or owners reported a decrease or expected decrease in sales as a result of new SNAP work requirements, which were signed into law as part of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025. The bill reduced SNAP spending by about $187 billion through 2034. It also added work requirements for thousands of county residents. That includes veterans, former foster youth, people experiencing homelessness and parents with kids over the age of 14. And it barred refugees and asylees from receiving the benefit.
The law rolled out in bits and pieces over the last year: first removing refugees and asylees last fall, then adding the new work requirement this spring. SNAP participation in Cuyahoga County has fallen in tandem. Between October 2025 and July of this year, enrollment dropped by around 14,000 people. More residents are likely to lose their benefits as the work requirement is enforced over the next several months.
That doesn’t just hurt the people who lost their benefits, said Darcy Freedman, the professor who oversaw the research and the director of the Mary Ann Swetland Center for Environmental Health at Case Western Reserve. It also has greater implications for grocery stores.
“Store margins are very low to begin with,” Freedman said. “… By a year from now, it probably is not unlikely that we would have a loss of a store, a casualty of a food store, because there’s just not enough money circling around to maintain the store.”
The challenges with SNAP are compounded by the pause of the Produce Perks program, Freedman said. Produce Perks allowed SNAP customers using food assistance at Dave’s Markets to get a dollar-for-dollar match on produce, up to $10. That program — which proponents say helped both customers and the store — is no longer operating at Dave’s due to a federal cut. It is still available at local farmers markets.
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Customers’ EBT cards being declined, store staff say
Students chose grocery stores selling produce, meat and dairy in ZIP codes where more than 9% of residents get SNAP. About 18% of the stores were convenience stores. They visited the stores from June through July 21, the first months where the county had to remove residents from the program because they failed to meet work requirements.
The majority of store owners or managers said the new work requirements would have a moderate to severe impact, Freedman said. About 55% said that they have changed or could change their ordering plans for food as a result.
At the same time, store owners and managers are seeing customers buy less because of rising grocery prices, Freedman said.
Cashiers are hearing about high prices and SNAP changes from customers. About 60% of cashiers interviewed said they saw shoppers running out of funds on their electronic benefit (EBT) cards. Others noticed those cards being declined, wrote Vennila Ramasubramanian, a doctoral student with the Swetland Center who worked on the project, in an email.
“A minimum first step is to have resources available in a grocery store if somebody uses their card and it’s declined,” Freedman said.
County plans to raise awareness about SNAP changes
Another notable data point that arose from the survey? The majority of store staff — 65% — were unaware of the SNAP work requirement changes, despite witnessing customers’ struggles.
“We’re a little surprised just because we had been out there communicating on these changes for quite a bit,” said Kevin Gowan, the county’s director of Job and Family Services, which administers the SNAP program. The office held a press conference in May and hosted multiple community listening sessions about the policy changes this summer.
As a result of the survey, Cuyahoga County is working to create information grocery stores can hand out about SNAP.
The plan is to create a resource with information about how residents can confirm their card is active and what amount is available, as well as how to get emergency food resources and job training opportunities.
The county is considering offering posters that retailers can hang as well as handheld cards cashiers can pass out to customers.
But the onus to distribute the information will ultimately be on grocery stores, Gowan said.
And there’s an inherent tension with grocery stores handing out information about free food options, Freedman said.
“The more people become dependent on emergency food, the less those dollars are going to go into the food retail marketplace,” she said.
Hunger response team requested survey
Last November, the government temporarily shut down and delayed the distribution of SNAP benefits. As a result, Cuyahoga County created a hunger response team.
The community coalition is still meeting, in an attempt to help government agencies, nonprofits and residents navigate SNAP changes. The committee on community engagement asked Freedman’s team to undertake the survey, said Marielee Santiago-Rodriguez, the committee’s co-chair. She also works for MetroHealth’s Institute for H.O.P.E., which addresses patients’ non-medical social needs.
Santiago-Rodriguez said the results will help them zero in on meeting customers where they’re at, such as the grocery store. The most significant challenge her committee has is explaining to residents that there are exemptions from the new work requirements. For example, residents who are pregnant or disabled are exempt.
Many social workers, community health workers and community partners are still confused about what those exemptions are and how to access them — even as they’re trying to help residents navigate the system, she said.
Santiago-Rodriguez said she’s able to act as a point person for questions about the new rules from social workers and community health workers at MetroHealth.
