Participation in the nation’s largest federally funded food assistance program fell by more than 13% over a 12-month period, a sharper drop than federal officials had projected as new work rules and other measures in President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” began taking effect.
The decline in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, includes people who no longer satisfy stricter eligibility standards. Advocates also say some eligible recipients are being cut off after missing paperwork deadlines or failing to quickly produce required documents. For now, it remains unclear how many people fall into each category.
Another unknown is how many households have lost benefits because state agencies that administer SNAP are struggling to manage the wave of rule changes. Arizona, which recorded the steepest enrollment drop in the country, has faced that kind of strain.
Tia Fields, who studies social safety net policy at the advocacy organization Invest in Louisiana, said the cases she is seeing are often less about recipients refusing or failing to work and more about navigating bureaucracy. “A lot of it is administrative paperwork,” she said.
Supporters of welfare reform argue that shrinking rolls could reflect a positive shift if more people are earning enough to leave the program. They have long maintained that SNAP needs tighter oversight, describing it as a program vulnerable to fraud.
“If there are people that are leaving the welfare rolls because they’re working and they’re moving forward,” said Rachel Sheffield, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which advocated for tougher SNAP requirements, “that would be a step forward.”
Arizona has posted the most dramatic decline to date, with enrollment falling by more than 50% over 12 months, according to data compiled by the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP. Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada each saw drops of more than 20%, as did Florida, where the Department of Children and Families said in a statement that the lower caseload “is reflective of the state’s strong focus on advancing opportunities for Floridians and their families to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
Eligibility requirements are tightening
SNAP remains a critical food source for more than 1 in 10 Americans. Most participants live below the poverty line, and the average household benefit is $344 a month, distributed through debit cards that can be used only to purchase groceries.
Newly released federal data found SNAP enrollment fell from 42.2 million in May 2025 to 36.6 million in May, a drop of more than 13% in a year. The May data are preliminary and could be revised.
Since 2010, the average number of monthly beneficiaries has been below 40 million for only two years — 2019 and 2020. The rolls started dropping after a recent peak of 43.3 million in October 2024. They’ve fallen much faster since implementation began last year for Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” which cut taxes and overhauled social safety net programs.
The expanded SNAP work requirement has now kicked in for most of the country, but it won’t begin in some places until next year.
Many adults 54 and younger without minor children have long been required to work to get SNAP benefits. The new law requires most people who previously had been exempt from requirements to either work, volunteer or go to school to get benefits. It now includes those ages 55 to 64, and those with children ages 14 to 17. Those 65 and older or with children younger than 14 remain exempt, as do those with health limitations. Some other groups that had been exempted from the requirement — including homeless people — no longer are.
In February, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the new requirements and other factors would push SNAP enrollment down over the next decade, falling below 34 million by 2036. But the nonpartisan office did not expect the drop to be as fast as it’s been. By May, the number of people receiving the benefits was about as low as it was forecast to go in 2030.
Experts expect another impact when states are required to pay part of the cost of benefits if their rate of payment errors — when recipients receive more or less than they should — is above 6%. Advocates for recipients say states may deny benefits to some people entirely rather than risk errors.
The cost-sharing is scheduled to start in October 2027, though Congress has considered a delay.
Changes have been hard to implement in Arizona
In Arizona, enrollment plummeted by 55% from April 2025 to April 2026 — the biggest drop in the country, with more than 400,000 fewer people getting benefits now.
The state said the drop was driven largely by the state’s own struggles putting new federal requirements in place.
“Implementing the federally mandated changes triggered unprecedented call volumes and administrative hurdles, including additional verification requirements, creating real barriers for applicants,” said Brett Bezio, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Economic Security.
Bezio said that hiring more staff members and introducing ways for people to submit their documents online have stemmed the enrollment drop in recent months as the state has reduced the chance for people who qualify to lose benefits.
In Phoenix, LaDiamond Lopez lost her benefits in January, with officials telling her she needed more documentation about her income and household — something that’s needed for officials to determine whether enrollees meet work requirements.
She’s been skipping meals and some bill payments to ensure her children have enough to eat.
In her quest to be reinstated, she had previous employers sign forms confirming she no longer worked for them and added her children — ages 3 and 9 — to her apartment lease. She expected payments to resume in August, but she doesn’t know if they’ll last.
“I was approved at the end of May, but now they’re asking me for more documents,” she said. “It’s a panic.”
Other factors could be driving down enrollment
The Heritage Foundation’s Sheffield says that some of the drop in SNAP use is likely a natural decline after peaks in the coronavirus pandemic era.
Paco Velez, the president and CEO of Feeding South Florida, said the 22% one-year enrollment drop in Florida is driven partly by immigrants who are in the US legally but fear being targeted by Trump’s immigration crackdown if they’re seeking government benefits.
Invest in Louisiana’s Fields said SNAP enrollment declines have broader consequences. For instance, children in households that receive the benefit can be automatically enrolled in free school lunch programs or in the SNAP for Women, Infants and Children program for low-income mothers, young children and expectant parents if they meet the other criteria.
“What happens when that child can’t pay for lunch?” she asked.
Some food banks have ramped up donations to try to meet a demand that they say has risen as SNAP rolls have declined. But that isn’t expected to bridge the gap fully.
“We’re very worried about it because we know that no other organization or program can replicate the scale and success of SNAP,” said Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength. “We know that schools can’t fill this gap. We know that food banks can’t fill this gap.”
