The number of people receiving food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has declined in recent months, with suggestions that declines are due to the Republican-backed reconciliation bill passed in July 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA or P.L. 119-21) made several changes to SNAP, including expanding work requirements, shifting some administrative costs to states, and cracking down on improper payments. Although it will take time to fully understand the effects of OBBBA on SNAP, placing caseload trends into context suggests that SNAP participation was due for an adjustment and that OBBBA policies can only partly explain the recent declines. Despite recent decreases in SNAP participation, the number of participants remains above pre-pandemic levels.
SNAP is the nation’s largest food assistance program for low-income households and has grown substantially over the past 25 years, with participation rising from about 17 million people in 2000 to roughly 40 million today (Figure 1). Even accounting for population growth, SNAP reaches far more people under current conditions than past years— from approximately 6 percent of the US population in 2000 to roughly 12 percent in 2025.
Despite this long-term growth, the number of SNAP recipients in January 2026 was 4.3 million (10 percent) below the number of recipients from one year prior. This is notable because OBBBA passed in July 2025, with some of the policy changes implemented immediately (such as changes to work requirements), while others were delayed until later (such as cost shifting). The number of SNAP recipients started declining even before OBBBA’s passage, which is typical given SNAP’s month-to-month seasonal variation. However, the decline accelerated in October 2025 through the most recent month (January 2026) (Figure 1). These recent SNAP declines are also not entirely consistent with the unemployment rate, which has remained relatively stable in recent months.
Figure 1: Monthly Number of SNAP/Food Stamp Recipients and Unemployment Rate, Oct 1999-Jan 2026
Source: USDA, FNS, National and/or State Level Monthly and/or Annual Data, https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap.
Note: September and October 2024 data for Florida were imputed based on August 2024 data because they were missing from the USDA totals. February 2019 data missing due to the government shutdown.
Focusing on the years during the COVID-19 pandemic provides additional context. When the pandemic began in early 2020, the SNAP caseload rose from about 37 million people to 43 million, reflecting increased unemployment, temporary policy changes, and administrative disruptions. However, the SNAP caseload never returned to pre-pandemic levels even after the unemployment rate returned to low levels and pandemic disruptions had largely ended. The sustained SNAP increase coincided with several policy decisions, including waiving work requirements, temporarily increasing benefits through September 2021, and a permanent increase in the maximum benefit in October 2021. Even considering recent declines, the number of SNAP recipients remains above pre-pandemic levels (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Change During the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Period
Source: USDA, FNS Number of SNAP Participants, https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap and Bureau of Labor statistics national unemployment rate seasonally adjusted. Unemployment data for October 2025 unavailable due to the partial government shutdown.
SNAP participation varies widely by state, and year-over-year changes in the number of SNAP participants stands out in a few states. In fact, almost one-third of the national decline (4.3 million or 10 percent) since January 2025 comes from three states: Arizona, Florida, and Georgia (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Percentage Change in SNAP Participants, January 2025 to January 2026 by State
Source: Author’s calculations using data from USDA, FNS SNAP: Number of Persons Participating, https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap.
More time and analysis are needed to fully understand the reasons for such notable declines in these states and overall. Nonetheless, a few reasons seem likely. One involves OBBBA’s policy changes, especially around work requirements for able-bodied adults (ABAWDS). Immediately following passage of OBBBA, the criteria by which states could waive work requirements narrowed, subjecting more SNAP participants to them. Notably, however, Florida and Georgia did not have any ABAWD waivers in place even before OBBBA passed and Arizona only had a partial waiver, which therefore cannot explain the entire SNAP decline in these states after July 2025.
Additionally, OBBBA changed the upper age limit for an ABAWD to 64 (up from 54) and applied it to parents of high school age children. A previous analysis suggested that this change increased the share of non-disabled and non-elderly (below age 65) SNAP adults subject to the ABAWD requirement from 30 percent to 50 percent (approximately 13 million SNAP adults are not disabled and not elderly, suggesting 2.6 million were newly subjected to work requirements). The CBO estimated that OBBBA would reduce SNAP participation by 2.4 million participants in the average month, largely due to changes in the work requirement. Taken together, this suggests that the year-over-year 4.3 million SNAP participant decline in January 2026 seems unlikely to stem entirely from the OBBBA.
Another possibility involves administrative factors loosely connected to OBBBA’s policy changes. For example, when states are faced with major policy changes like OBBBA they might discover unrelated administrative issues that when addressed result in abrupt caseload changes. Another involves changes to non-citizen eligibility for SNAP. However, only 2.3 million noncitizens receive SNAP, and OBBBA changes only affected a small share of them.
This leaves unexplained some of the recent SNAP declines. Additional understanding comes from looking at longer-term trends, which shows that recent SNAP declines are not unprecedented. Figure 4 shows annual changes through FY2025 (ending in September 2025) in the number of SNAP participants by summing monthly caseloads over the entire fiscal year. Viewed this way, the data suggest that participation was due for an adjustment. Following almost 15 years of annual increases in SNAP participation (from FY2000 through FY2013), SNAP experienced annual declines only during the economic recovery from the Great Recession. Conceivably, a similar decline should have occurred after the pandemic-induced spike in SNAP participation in FY2020. However, annual changes in SNAP participation only turned negative in FY 2022 and FY 2024, and were small compared to historical norms. Given these trends, further declines in FY2026, which began in October 2025, should be expected.
Figure 4: Annual Change in SNAP Participation and Unemployment, FY 2001 – FY 2025
Source: Author’s calculations using data from USDA, FNS SNAP: Number of Person Participating, https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap.
Placing recent SNAP trends in historical perspective suggests that the caseload was due for a decline, and recent year-over-year reductions likely stem in part from this expected pattern alongside the effects of OBBBA. As OBBBA’s policy changes become fully implemented, we should expect further reductions in the number of people receiving SNAP. Even so, the number of SNAP participants, as well as the share of the population receiving SNAP, are likely to remain within the range of SNAP caseloads prior to the pandemic, despite OBBBA’s policy changes.
