More than 4 million Americans have been dropped from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law last July, according to new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Among those losing benefits are more than 1 million children across the states studied, with some states seeing enrollment cut nearly in half. The findings have intensified debate over the law’s eligibility changes and cost-shifting provisions as families report growing difficulty affording groceries.
Story Highlights
- CBPP analysis found SNAP participation dropped by more than 4.5 million people, or 11 percent, nationally between July 2025 and April 2026.
- More than 1 million children across 19 states with available data have lost SNAP assistance since the law’s passage.
- Arizona recorded the steepest decline of any state, with more than 450,000 residents, including roughly 180,000 children, losing benefits.
- The declines are linked to new state cost-sharing requirements and tightened eligibility rules tied to the 2025 Republican reconciliation law.
What Happened
New data compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, drawing on U.S. Department of Agriculture and state program figures, shows that SNAP participation has fallen sharply since President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law in July 2025. Between the law’s enactment and April 2026, the most recent month with complete data across all states, national SNAP enrollment dropped by more than 4.5 million people, an 11 percent decline that CBPP describes as the steepest drop in the program’s participation in nearly three decades, with the last comparable decline following the 1996 welfare reform law.
The law shifted a significant share of SNAP’s benefit costs onto individual states based on their payment error rates, while also tightening eligibility screening and expanding work requirements for many adult recipients. States facing new financial exposure under the law have responded with more aggressive verification and paperwork requirements, which experts say are pushing eligible families off the program even when their underlying circumstances have not changed. Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at CBPP, said children have become “collateral damage” of a law that Republican sponsors insisted would protect the most vulnerable populations, including children and pregnant women.
Arizona has experienced the most dramatic decline of any state, with more than 450,000 residents losing SNAP benefits, cutting the state’s overall participation roughly in half. Of those, an estimated 180,000 are children, according to figures cited by Representative Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who called the findings “shocking.” Other states have seen substantial declines as well, including drops of nearly one in four children in Louisiana and close to one-fifth of enrolled children in both Massachusetts and Texas.
During legislative debate over the bill last year, Republican lawmakers including House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and Representatives John Rose of Tennessee and Dusty Johnson of South Dakota repeatedly argued that the reforms would “restore integrity” to SNAP without harming vulnerable populations. USDA data now shows that nationally, 4.3 million fewer people received benefits in February 2026 compared to the same month a year earlier, leaving 37.8 million total participants, a figure that has continued falling in subsequent months according to CBPP’s tracking.
Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who introduced an unsuccessful amendment aimed at softening the bill’s SNAP provisions, cited the emerging outcomes during a recent House floor speech. CBPP has warned that participation losses are exceeding the Congressional Budget Office’s original projections for the law and that the trend will likely worsen as more states implement the full cost-shifting requirements in the coming months.
Why It Matters
SNAP remains the nation’s largest food assistance program, providing monthly grocery benefits to low-income households, and its erosion has direct consequences for food security among some of the country’s most economically vulnerable families. The scale of the decline, more than 4 million people in under a year, represents one of the most significant contractions of a major federal safety net program in a generation, with children bearing a disproportionate share of the impact.
The shift of financial responsibility onto states also raises broader questions about the sustainability of the program’s administration going forward. States with high payment error rates now face substantial new fiscal exposure, which CBPP warns could total billions of dollars, potentially forcing difficult budget tradeoffs at the state level that extend well beyond food assistance alone.
For policymakers, the data creates political pressure on both sides of the aisle. Republican lawmakers who championed the bill’s “integrity” provisions now face scrutiny over outcomes that diverge sharply from their public assurances, while Democrats are using the findings to press for legislative fixes, including potential delays to the cost-shifting timeline that CBPP has explicitly called for Congress to consider.
Economic and Global Context
The SNAP declines are unfolding against a backdrop of rising food insecurity nationally. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently noted a “remarkable increase” in food insecurity as households cope with both higher grocery costs and the loss of federal assistance simultaneously. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s Survey of Professional Forecasters projects inflation is likely to accelerate in coming months, compounding pressure on family budgets already strained by benefit losses.
Grocery and energy price increases have been persistent themes across recent economic data, and the removal of SNAP benefits for millions of households effectively amplifies the impact of those price pressures on the families least able to absorb them. Food banks and pantries in several states have reported rising demand as displaced SNAP recipients seek alternative sources of assistance.
State budget offices are also beginning to grapple with the long-term fiscal implications of the cost-shift provisions, which will require states to assume a growing share of SNAP benefit costs tied to their administrative error rates starting in the coming fiscal year, a change that could strain state budgets already facing other spending pressures.
Implications
For Congress, CBPP has explicitly called for lawmakers to delay the cost-shift provisions before they fully take effect, warning that the “unfolding emergency” will deepen without intervention. Whether such a legislative fix gains traction is likely to depend heavily on the political dynamics heading into the midterm elections, with vulnerable lawmakers in both parties weighing the electoral risks of the current trajectory.
For state governments, particularly those like Arizona facing the steepest enrollment declines, officials will need to decide whether to absorb rising administrative costs, adjust eligibility verification processes, or pursue supplemental state-funded food assistance programs to offset federal losses.
For affected families, the coming months are likely to bring continued uncertainty as more states implement the law’s full provisions. Advocacy organizations are expected to escalate public pressure campaigns and legal challenges in an effort to slow the pace of enrollment declines, particularly as they pertain to children.
Source
Hundreds of Thousands in Key Swing State Lose SNAP Thanks to Trump
