The entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Stock photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)
At least 2.5 million low-income people quickly lost grocery assistance under a Republican-passed bill that added novel requirements to the nation’s largest nutrition program and shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in costs from the federal government to states, according to a study released Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
About 6% of the 41 million Americans on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) when President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Act on July 4, 2025, were no longer receiving benefits by the end of the year.
The left-wing think tank’s report was based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies for the period from July to December 2025.
Arizona was the biggest outlier in the data – according to the think tank, which in addition to last year’s USDA data, as many as 47% of people covered by the program – about 424,000 Arizonans – lost benefits in 2025, and cited more recent data from state agencies.
Data from USDA, which operates the federal SNAP website, for the full year of 2025 shows an even larger decline of 3.4 million people, or about 8% of the total number of people covered by the program, CBPP said. SNAP is federally funded and administered by states, although cost sharing will change under the law.
In an email Wednesday, a USDA spokesman praised the decline in SNAP participation, noting that the number of people covered by the program fell below 40 million for the first time since the pandemic. A spokesman said the program would continue to “serve those most in need while strengthening the integrity of the program.”
“This change reflects several factors, including the most comprehensive reform of work requirements since 1996, the One Big Beautiful Bill of 2025, as well as USDA initiatives to expand access to employment services, career and technical education, and case management support through the USDA ‘More Than a Work’ campaign,” the spokesperson wrote.
Incentives for states
The test they weren’t going to look for the cause of the decline, co-author Joseph Llobrera, CBPP’s senior research director for food aid, said in an interview. But he noted that the law creates incentives for states to limit participation in the program.
Under a provision in the yet-to-be-enacted law, the portion of the program costs that states must bear is tied to the state’s “error rate” – the ratio of payments made to people who should not have been eligible for benefits.
This incentivizes states to limit access to the program without providing adequate rewards for expanding access, Llobrera said.
“So the incentive structure that exists really pushes states to make it more difficult for people who need that assistance to access the program,” he said.
Scientists say the decline in labor force participation occurred without any improvement in economic conditions, such as a decline in the unemployment rate.
That means people are coming off the payroll because of changes to the program, not because their situation has improved to the point where they no longer need food assistance, the study found.
Many provisions of the Act have not yet entered into force. For example, error penalties begin in FY2028.
Design, not a bug
Part of the restriction, however, is intentional, as the bill’s supporters intended to cut SNAP benefits for recipients who met certain criteria and police what they portrayed as fraud and waste at the state level.
The cuts to the federal portion of SNAP funding helped pay for massive tax cuts and military spending increases elsewhere in the megabill, which Republicans passed without any Democratic support in a process known as budget reconciliation.
Supporters of the agriculture portion of the megabill have argued for provisions designed to encourage beneficiaries to report their eligibility more frequently, tighten work requirements, disqualify certain categories of legal immigrants, raise the age at which parenthood would no longer be considered work, or otherwise tighten the availability of the program.
These provisions would support ensure that only those who truly need federal aid receive it, supporters say.
It would also create an incentive for states to control erroneous payments, which was not the case when the federal government absorbed the entire cost of the program before the law’s passage.
“Relying on SNAP is a disservice to people who really need it,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Republican from Pennsylvania, when the committee approved the bill last year. “It is clear that SNAP is not working as Congress intended. We must provide appropriate incentives for states to more effectively administer the program on behalf of those it serves.”
Llobrera said he understood the rhetoric in favor of increasing restrictions on the program, but at the time the center was “raising the alarm that the bill would harm people.”
A spokesman for Thompson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Arizona
The CBPP report included, among others: break section in Arizona, where SNAP enrollment has declined significantly more than in any other state.
The case study found that, as in other states, economic benefits did not explain Arizona’s changes.
“This dramatic decline cannot be explained by rapid improvements in people’s economic well-being or a reduction in the need for food assistance,” the report said, noting that Arizona’s unemployment rate rose over the study period, while grocery costs rose by about 4% in 2025.
The study found that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and state agency spokespeople blame the GOP bill for the drastic reduction in benefits, but the decline goes beyond what would be expected under the bill’s provisions.
This suggests that state administrators – even under Democratic leadership – are going beyond the law’s minimum requirements to limit access, the authors say.
“It therefore appears that a combination of factors, including the mega bill and the state’s response to it, are contributing to the sharp decline in the number of Arizona families using SNAP,” they wrote.
Because the bill also raises the costs of administering the program for states and requires states to pay a portion of the benefits, some states, including Arizona, laid off staff before the bill went into effect, Llobrera said.
“With cuts in administrative funding to states due to this mega bill, this spending will only accelerate,” he said.
Close
Such changes to SNAP rules have compounded an already tumultuous time for program recipients. Within A then a record long time partial government shutdown last year, the benefits were there constantly turned off and on because the Trump administration said it could not spend SNAP funds during the business shutdown and federal courts ruled that benefits must be paid.
White House spokespeople did not return messages seeking comment on Wednesday.
