Research has shown that SNAP work requirements do not increase jobs, but they do reduce participation

A fresh analysis suggests that as states implement more stringent work requirements under the federal food stamp program, those requirements will not increase employment and will actually push more people off food assistance.

Researchers reviewed research on work requirements and concluded that “the best evidence shows that they do not increase employment. Moreover, this study found that work requirements cause large declines in SNAP participation.”

The tests from The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, comes at a time of major upheaval for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Shares are already withering as states implement changes required under the president’s most significant tax and domestic policy bill passed last summer.

Since the fall, states and counties administering SNAP have been notifying residents on food stamps that they must do so meet job requirements or they will lose food aid. These changes included, among others: exemptions from work requirements for the elderly, the homeless, veterans and some rural residents.

Known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, law ordered cuts to social services programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.

While SNAP enrollment is withering across the country, more people are likely to lose food assistance as states continue to implement work requirements and recertify participants, said Lauren Bauer, a research fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and deputy director of The Hamilton Project.

“All we know about work requirements is that they do not increase employment among the groups subject to them,” she told Stateline. “All they do is increase the likelihood that they will be removed from the program. So if these work requirements continue to be introduced and implemented, we expect enrollment to decline and no change in employment.”

Bauer said the growing body of research on SNAP has changed her mind about its impact on employment. Although food stamps reach millions of people each year, the program’s requirements have proven ineffective, confusing and burdensome, she said.

“I now believe that SNAP should be an anti-hunger program and that there are many, many ways to develop the workforce, career paths, job training, job search – all of these things. It is not an anti-hunger program and should not be associated with it.”

She’s more concerned about how stricter work requirements will affect people who lose their jobs in the face of an economic downturn. Traditionally, SNAP has been one of the most effective forms of social assistance for the unemployed, helping people who lose their jobs quickly obtain food assistance. However, laid-off workers will increasingly be told they cannot receive benefits if they do not work.

“It’s just a dissonant and unhelpful interaction with the government,” Bauer said. “I lost my job, I need food benefits. Well, you can only get food benefits if you have a job.”

A study by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that at least 2.5 million low-income people, or 6% of enrollees, have lost SNAP benefits since the law went into effect published on Wednesday.

Bauer said it’s unclear how much of that decline is directly related to the federal legislation. This is because SNAP participation generally declines during good economic times and increases during economic downturns.

But the program faces unprecedented changes: Under the fresh law, states also lost funding for nutrition education programs, must end eligibility for non-citizens such as refugees and asylees, and will lose work exemptions for people living in areas with narrow employment opportunities. States are also forced to cover a larger share of the program’s costs.

Earlier this week, a USDA spokesman praised the decline in SNAP participation, noting that the program’s applications dropped below 40 million for the first time since the pandemic. Spokesman he told States Newsroom the program will continue to “serve those most in need while strengthening the integrity of the program.”

Republicans, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, defended the legislative changes to the SNAP program, arguing that they would aid eliminate waste and fraud in the program.

In June press release, he characterized SNAP as a “bloated, ineffective program” but said Americans who need food assistance will get it anyway.

“Republicans proudly defend commonsense welfare reform, fiscal common sense and the dignity of work,” Johnson said in the release.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at: khardy@stateline.org.