The food-assistance cuts written into the tax-and-spending law that President Trump signed on July 4, 2025, are now showing up in enrollment data, and the number of people receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has dropped sharply across nearly the entire country.
According to a tracker maintained by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), SNAP participation fell by more than 4.5 million people, or roughly 11 percent, between the law’s enactment and April 2026, the most recent month with data for every state. The research group found that participation declined in every state except Alaska, dropping by 5 percent or more in 44 states and by 10 percent or more in 23 states.
CBPP said the decline is the steepest over such a short period in nearly three decades, since Congress enacted deep cuts to what was then the Food Stamp Program in 1996. The group noted that national unemployment has stayed near 4 percent since July 2025, and it concluded that reduced need is very unlikely to be driving the drop. In the 19 states with available data, CBPP estimated the number of children receiving SNAP has fallen by 1 million since July 2025, and it projected the nationwide figure likely exceeds 1.5 million.
The declines have been most pronounced in some states. CBPP reported that Arizona’s SNAP participation fell about 55 percent from July 2025 to April 2026, the largest drop in the country. In an interview with Axios, Terri Shoemaker of the Arizona Food Bank Network said her organization has been “operating kind of in emergency management mode.” She tied the state’s decline in part to a push to reduce SNAP error rates, which she said has subjected applicants to hours-long interviews, extensive documentation checks and delays.
A new bill for the states
Much of the pressure on state agencies stems from a structural change in the law. For the first time in the program’s history, most states will be required to pay a share of SNAP benefit costs, between 5 and 15 percent, starting October 1, 2027. The amount each state owes will be tied to its payment error rate, a measure of over- and underpayments that CBPP says largely reflects unintentional mistakes, often by program administrators.
Based on U.S. Department of Agriculture error-rate data for 2025 and benefit projections, CBPP estimated that states could collectively owe roughly $9 billion in the first year, with almost half of states potentially owing $100 million or more. In fiscal year 2025, according to USDA data cited by Axios, only nine states had error rates below the 6 percent threshold that determines whether a state must pay. The law also cuts in half the federal reimbursement for states’ costs to administer SNAP, beginning October 1, 2026.
CBPP said states racing to lower their error rates before the deadline may be delaying or improperly denying benefits to eligible people, which it described as a likely factor in the falling participation numbers. Joseph Llobrera, a senior director of research at the group, told Axios that “payment accuracy is important, but it’s only one measure of the success of a program,” noting there is no corresponding penalty for wrongly denying benefits to an eligible household.
A USDA spokesperson told Axios that SNAP is a means-tested entitlement and that eligible households receive benefits, but added that recipients are subject to recertification and that some “might move to employment, become disinterested in participating, or experience another change in household circumstances.”
In a June survey by the American Public Human Services Association cited by CBPP, 11 percent of responding states identified a risk that they would withdraw from SNAP because of the cost shift, and 5 percent said there was a risk they would pause SNAP operations.
Scope of the cuts
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the law cuts federal SNAP funding by about $187 billion through 2034, roughly 20 percent, which CBPP describes in its By the Numbers analysis as the largest cut to the program in history. More than 40 million people receive SNAP each month, including about 16 million children, 8 million seniors and 4 million non-elderly adults with disabilities.
The law expands SNAP’s work requirement to adults aged 55 to 64 and to parents whose youngest child is at least 14, and it removes exemptions previously granted to veterans, people experiencing homelessness and former foster youth. It also ends eligibility for many immigrants living lawfully in the United States, including refugees and people granted asylum. CBO estimated that about 2.4 million people in a typical month will be cut from SNAP under the expanded work requirement, and that 90,000 lawfully present immigrants will lose an average of $210 per month.
Food banks say they cannot close the gap. Feeding America CEO Denis McDonough told Axios that food banks are purchasing record levels of food and are bracing for as much or more demand than during the government shutdown in the fall of 2025. He said the decline in SNAP participation is not necessarily evidence that fewer people need help, adding that it is likelier “that the program has become harder for eligible people to access it.”
Advocates including Feeding America are urging Congress to delay the cost-sharing deadline. CBPP has recommended that lawmakers grant all states the same two-year delay of the cost shift that some states received under the law.
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