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SNAP Participation Dropping Following Enactment of Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law

Percentage change in SNAP participants between and

Note: Some states appear to have anomalous data. See “Chart Notes” below.

Source: CBPP calculations from USDA and state program data

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | cbpp.org

Key Takeaways

Between the megabill’s July 2025 enactment and March 2026 (the last month with data on all states):

SNAP participation is down by more than 4 million people, or 10 percent, in USDA data. (It’s down more than 4.7 million people, or 11 percent, over the past year.)
SNAP participation has dropped in every state, including by 5 percent or more in 42 states, and by 10 percent or more in 21 states.
The last time there was such a steep decrease in participation in this short period of time (other than temporary spikes following natural disasters) was nearly three decades ago, after Congress enacted very deep cuts to SNAP (then the Food Stamp Program) in 1996. SNAP participation dropped by nearly 10 percent (2.2 million people) in the eight months from April to December 1997.
In the 17 states with publicly available data or that have shared unpublished data, the number of children receiving SNAP has fallen by about 1 million since July 2025.
It’s very likely that nationwide, the number of children receiving SNAP has dropped by more than 1.5 million since July 2025.^[1]
Unemployment nationwide has been flat at about 4 percent since July 2025, BLS data show. At best, it’s down in 13 states by less than 1 percentage point. It’s very unlikely that reduced need is driving the decline in SNAP participation.

These participation declines began before some of the major changes from H.R. 1 were fully in effect. We expect these harms to grow as states fully implement eligibility restrictions and take actions to lower their error rates.

H.R. 1, the Republican megabill enacted July 4, 2025, poses great harm to families, including higher food costs, poverty, and hunger. It makes deep cuts to federal funding for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), shifting significant new costs to states. It dramatically expands SNAP’s already harsh and ineffective provision taking away people’s benefits for not meeting a work requirement. And it ended eligibility for many people with a lawful immigration status.

We estimate that SNAP participation nationwide fell by more than 4 million people (10 percent) between the law’s July 2025 enactment and March 2026, based on the latest month of data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and data from the Georgia Department of Human Services provided in an open records request. This estimate uses state data for Georgia due to anomalies in USDA data.

The declines are especially pronounced in some states. SNAP participation declined in Arizona by 53 percent from July 2025 to March 2026. Using more recent state data through May 2026, the decline was 50 percent due to a slight increase in caseloads in May 2026. Other states also show significant declines, and even more so when compared to 12 months ago: 17 percent in Florida (20 percent using more recent state data); 16 percent in Louisiana (21 percent using more recent state data); and nearly 16 percent in Oklahoma. In other words, the declines started before H.R. 1’s enactment, suggesting factors at play in addition to that law. But in many states, declines in SNAP participation accelerated after H.R. 1, and we expect that trend to continue. Use the map and charts below to see details.

In the 17 states with available data, the number of children receiving SNAP food assistance has fallen by about 1 million since July 2025. Put another way, children account for nearly half of the 2.2 million people who are no longer receiving SNAP in those states. (See table.)

Starting in 2027, most states will have to pay between 5 and 15 percent of SNAP benefit costs, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars a year in many states. And the amount a state will have to pay will be based on current error rates, factoring in errors that states are making today. The magnitude of the cost shift and the urgency surrounding error rates may incentivize states to take drastic measures to reduce their payment error rates quickly and cut program costs, even if it means delaying or improperly denying benefits to eligible people. We’re likely seeing some of those initial effects in SNAP participation data.

State	Most Recent Month of Data	Change in Total Participation		Change in Child Participation
State	Most Recent Month of Data	Count	Percent	Count	Percent	Share of State’s Total Participation Change
Alabama	May 2026	-81,838	-11%	-23,324	-7%	29%
Arizona	May 2026	-457,227	-50%	-195,799	-52%	43%
Arkansas	May 2026	-20,987	-9%	-7,864	-8%	37%
California	May 2026	-333,062	-6%	-156,440	-9%	47%
Kansas	May 2026	-23,558	-13%	-10,838	-13%	46%
Louisiana	May 2026	-172,904	-21%	-83,096	-23%	48%
Maine	May 2026	-15,340	-9%	-4,679	-9%	31%
Maryland	April 2026	-39,452	-6%	-17,267	-7%	44%
Massachusetts	May 2026	-174,973	-16%	-61,647	-18%	35%
Michigan	May 2026	-113,403	-8%	-41,174	-8%	36%
Missouri	May 2026	-48,475	-7%	-17,268	-6%	36%
New Jersey	April 2026	-35,588	-4%	-21,815	-7%	61%
New Mexico	April 2026	-18,061	-4%	-10,060	-6%	56%
Ohio	May 2026	-107,573	-8%	-50,477	-9%	47%
South Dakota	May 2026	-4,753	-6%	-2,834	-8%	60%
Texas	May 2026	-547,749	-16%	-291,582	-17%	53%
Vermont	March 2026	-4,547	-7%	-1,544	-8%	34%
Total	-	-2,199,490	-12%	-997,708	-13%	45%
* Ohio defines children as individuals under the age of 22 who receive SNAP benefits and live with a parent. Notes: States shown are those that publicly report SNAP caseload data for children, or do not currently publish caseload data publicly but have shared unpublished data. Kentucky also provides child caseload data but is omitted due to data quality concerns. The change in the number of participating children in these states likely is not representative of the national change because Arizona’s percentage decline is larger than any other state’s. Source: CBPP calculations of SNAP state agency child caseload data as of July 13, 2026

In addition, H.R. 1 expanded SNAP’s already harsh and ineffective work requirement, extending it to older adults up to age 65 and to parents and other caregivers of children age 14 and older. It also substantially narrowed states’ ability to waive the time limit for areas with few job opportunities and eliminated exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth. Research consistently shows the work requirement cuts many people off SNAP without increasing employment or earnings, indicating that many of these recipients are likely to be cut off from SNAP benefits as states ramp up implementation.

We will be tracking state SNAP participation data to identify trends likely attributable to the megabill. This tracker shows the most recent federal data on SNAP participation and often more recent data from state agencies administering the SNAP program, as well as unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This tracker is initially focused on SNAP participation and will be regularly updated as new data become available. Additional indicators may be added over time.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that H.R. 1 cuts SNAP by nearly $187 billion through 2034, the largest cut to the program in history, and that more than 2.4 million people in a typical month would be cut from SNAP. When also including people losing a substantial amount, but not all, of their SNAP benefit, we estimate that 4 million people in a typical month will lose out, once the changes are fully implemented.

Megabill Impact on SNAP Administration

Several of the megabill’s provisions directly eliminate eligibility for SNAP, including the expansion of the work requirement to new groups of recipients, the significant limitations on work requirement waivers for areas with higher unemployment, and new restrictions that take SNAP away from people with certain lawful immigration statuses.

The megabill is also substantially influencing how state agencies administer SNAP. To minimize the amount they will be required to pay under H.R. 1’s cost-shift provisions, states are incentivized to adopt policies that will reduce error rates quickly. Error rates are measures of states’ over- and under-payments in SNAP, mostly resulting from unintentional mistakes by state agencies and households, not fraud. The states’ error rates in fiscal years 2025 and 2026 will determine how much they pay in fiscal year 2028, the first year the cost-shift provision is in effect.

Many of the policies the states are already adopting in an effort to lower error rates are likely to result in eligible households losing SNAP food assistance because of administrative burdens. This can include policies such as requiring more frequent verification of income and expenses, which may make it more difficult for eligible households to access benefits or result in processing delays. Unfortunately, given the way SNAP error rates are calculated, wrongly denying or delaying benefits to an eligible household is not considered an “error.”

SNAP participants in some states already were facing long application delays and call center wait times before H.R. 1. The law’s short implementation timeline and cut to the federal investment in state administrative expenses are making it hard for state agencies to adjust their operations. As a result, SNAP participation may decline faster in the coming months than might be expected from the law’s implementation, resulting in increased poverty, food insecurity, and hunger.

State SNAP Participation and Unemployment Trends

SNAP Participation in

Source: USDA and state agency program data.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | cbpp.org

SNAP participation may have dropped in part due to H.R. 1, even before some of its major provisions have taken effect. Larger-than-expected participation declines, for example, may indicate situations where states are implementing policies in an effort to reduce error rates that have the effect of broadly reducing SNAP enrollment. Other constraints, such as staffing shortages, may also be at play. SNAP also faced an unprecedented disruption during the government shutdown late in 2025, during which the Trump Administration illegally refused to deliver benefits.

This chart includes the number of monthly SNAP participants that states report to USDA and, when applicable, more recent data that states post on their websites. The latter data are sometimes slightly different from USDA’s due to differences in how they both count SNAP enrollment, but the trends are typically the same.

For information on participation irregularities, see “Chart Notes” box below.

Change in SNAP Participation Since 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Enactment

Source: CBPP calculations from USDA program data.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | cbpp.org

Monthly Unemployment Rate in

Note: Unemployment data for October 2025 were not published due to federal government shutdown.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | cbpp.org

This chart shows state unemployment rates from August 2024 through the most recent month of data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Changes in SNAP participation are driven by changes in the number of people eligible for the program and the share of eligible people who successfully enroll. SNAP responds to changes in poverty and the economy. As unemployment increases, poverty increases and more people become eligible for SNAP benefits. States with rising unemployment may see an increase in demand for food assistance. States with falling SNAP participation while unemployment is rising or holding steady may indicate that an increasing number of eligible families cannot access SNAP to help keep food on their table. Data from the Urban Institute indicate that food insecurity remained high in 2025, just as states began to implement deep cuts to SNAP and health care coverage .

Download the data: https://snaptracker.apps.cbpp.org/data/downloadable_data.xlsx

Chart Notes

USDA SNAP participation data may include disaster assistance (D-SNAP). USDA provided D-SNAP in the fall of 2024 to Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia due to hurricanes Helene and Milton; to Louisiana due to hurricane Francine; and to New Mexico due to severe storms. It provided D-SNAP to California in February 2025 due to wildfires, and Kentucky and West Virginia in the spring of 2025 and Arkansas and New Mexico in the summer of 2025, all due to severe storms. States do not often include disaster SNAP in the data they post.

USDA and BLS routinely revise historical data when a new month of data are released. As a result, the data in this tracker may change slightly as the tracker is updated over time. The most recent month of USDA data are usually preliminary. State agency data may be preliminary and subject to later revisions.

State SNAP caseload trends may show some anomalies due to irregularities in the federal or state agency data. USDA data for the number of participants in Georgia show clear irregularities over the period of data shown from August 2024 through March 2026. USDA data for Georgia show a sharper change for the number of participants from July 2025 to March 2026 (-33 percent) than in either the number of households (-14 percent) or the amount of benefits issued (-12 percent). Due to these anomalies in Georgia’s data, we replaced the USDA data with participation data from the Georgia Department of Human Services, obtained through an open records request, for the national totals and for the data in the map for Georgia. That data may not include participants who received SNAP disaster assistance benefits (D-SNAP) in the fall of 2024 following Hurricane Helene.

USDA data for North Dakota show an anomalous blip in October 2025 (so we replaced data for that month with participation data verified through the state agency). USDA omitted participation data for Florida in September and October of 2024 (we correct for this specific omission by imputing data for those months from a previous USDA data release). State agency SNAP participation data for Ohio appear to be misreported for the month of October 2025, so we have omitted them. For Minnesota, the number of people the state reports includes a small number of people who receive state-funded food benefits. In addition, Minnesota, under unique authority known as MFIP, combines SNAP food benefits with cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for some families.

Puerto Rico does not participate in SNAP. It receives a block grant for nutrition assistance.

SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Benefits as the 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Is Implemented

SNAP Participation Dropping Following Enactment of Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law

Percentage change in SNAP participants between and

State SNAP Participation and Unemployment Trends

SNAP Participation in

Change in SNAP Participation Since 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Enactment

Monthly Unemployment Rate in