SNAP enrollment fell more than 13% as work rules take effect

SNAP participation fell to a preliminary 36.6 million people in May 2026, down from 42.2 million a year earlier, as states began implementing expanded federal work requirements and other changes to the food-aid program.

The decline of about 5.6 million people, or more than 13%, is a major contraction in a program used by millions of U.S. households to help buy groceries. It also has implications for state agencies that administer SNAP and for federal spending.

But the May figures are preliminary and subject to revision. They establish the scale and timing of the decline, not the precise reason each household left SNAP.

What changed under the new rules

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2025 reconciliation law, expanded work-related obligations for some SNAP recipients and changed other eligibility and administrative rules.

The revised rules generally reach more adults, including some people ages 55 to 64 and households with children ages 14 to 17. Depending on their circumstances, affected adults may have to work, volunteer or participate in an employment and training program. People who fail to meet applicable requirements can lose benefits for a period of time.

Some exemptions remain, including for people who cannot work because of a physical or mental limitation and households with younger children. Other groups that previously received exemptions, including some veterans, homeless people and young adults who aged out of foster care, are now subject to the requirements under the revised rules.

States screen recipients, review exemptions and apply the requirements. That means implementation can differ by state in timing, notices, procedures and administrative capacity.

State declines have varied widely

The national decline has not been evenly distributed. The Associated Press reported that Arizona’s enrollment fell 55% from April 2025 to April 2026, the largest decline in the country, with more than 400,000 fewer people receiving benefits. Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada and Florida each recorded declines of more than 20% in the comparisons cited by AP.

Arizona officials said the state faced unprecedented call volumes, additional verification requirements and other administrative hurdles as it implemented the federal changes. The state later added staff and expanded online document submissions.

Arizona’s experience is a state-specific example, not a measure of what happened in every state. States may differ in when they put requirements into practice, how they notify recipients and how quickly they process recertifications and verification documents.

Why benefits may stop

A household can lose or experience an interruption in SNAP for several reasons. Those include failing a work requirement, changes in income or other eligibility factors, changes affecting immigration-related eligibility, incomplete paperwork, missed recertification deadlines or administrative churn.

A notice, unanswered request for documentation or failure to document an exemption can interrupt benefits even when a household may still qualify. Overloaded call centers and case-processing systems can make it harder to correct a case or submit required information on time.

USDA’s national tables do not break the 5.6 million-person decline into those categories. They therefore cannot establish how much of the change came from work-rule ineligibility, income changes, immigration-related eligibility changes or administrative loss of coverage.

What it means for federal spending

The Congressional Budget Office projects that SNAP outlays will total $100 billion in 2026, down from $106 billion in 2025, and decline to $94 billion in 2028 before rising later in the decade as food costs increase.

CBO also projects that changes to SNAP in the 2025 reconciliation law will reduce participation and federal outlays over time. The agency estimated that work-requirement changes alone would reduce average monthly participation by 2.4 million people over the 2025-2034 period. Those are budget and policy projections, not measurements of how many people actually lost benefits in May 2026.

AP reported that May participation was already about as low as CBO had forecast for 2030, although the comparison does not identify why the decline occurred or whether the preliminary figures will be revised.

More changes are ahead. The law schedules a shift in SNAP administrative cost sharing beginning in October 2026 and requires states to share part of benefit costs beginning in October 2027 when their payment-error rates meet the statutory threshold. Those future provisions could add pressure to state agencies and budgets.

What recipients should watch

Recipients should monitor state SNAP notices, recertification dates and requests for verification. A missed deadline or incomplete response can interrupt benefits, while state procedures and implementation dates may differ.

The May figures provide an early national measure of SNAP’s contraction. Later revisions, state-level reporting and more detailed case data will be needed to determine how much of the decline reflects new ineligibility, administrative barriers, post-pandemic normalization or other factors.

Sources

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