Those losing coverage in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, include people who don't meet the tightening requirements to participate.
Proponents of welfare reform hope the roll reductions are driven by people earning too much to keep qualifying — a sign that policy changes are behaving as intended for a program they assert is riddled with 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 pushed for stricter requirements for SNAP, “that would be a step forward.”
Arizona has had the steepest decline so far, with a 12-month drop over more than 50%, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP. The decline was more than 20% in Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada — and in Florida, where the Department of Children and Families said in a statement that the decreasing number “is reflective of the state's strong focus on advancing opportunities for Floridians and their families to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
The monthly benefit, which is delivered on debit cards that can be used only for groceries, is $344 per household on average.
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. It’s 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.
