SNAP Participation Fell by 5.5 Million People in a Year to 36.1 Million, the Lowest Level in 17 Years, With About 2 Million Fewer Children Enrolled

Fewer American families are swiping an EBT card at the grocery register than at any point in 17 years. SNAP, the federal food assistance program once called food stamps, served 36.1 million people in July 2026, about 5.5 million fewer than a year earlier, according to an analysis of USDA figures by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Children account for a large part of the drop. CBPP estimates that roughly 2 million fewer kids are now getting SNAP than when the 2025 budget law was signed.

How the 5.5 million figure was counted

CBPP’s SNAP tracker, last updated Oct. 23, compares participation in July 2025, the month the law known as H.R. 1 was enacted, with July 2026, the most recent month of national data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over those 12 months, the group says participation fell by about 5.5 million people, or 13%.

The USDA’s own SNAP data page, updated Oct. 20, lists July 2026 as the latest month available in its national and state files. The Food Research & Action Center, which republishes the USDA monthly numbers, reports the exact July total as 36,087,667 participants.

CBPP describes that total as SNAP’s lowest point in 17 years. The tracker also notes that the most recent USDA month is usually preliminary and that state figures can be revised, so the exact count may shift slightly as final data arrives. Even so, the direction has been consistent: CBPP’s earlier count, published in April, showed participation already down by more than 3 million people, or 8%, between July 2025 and January 2026.

The losses are not spread evenly. The same tracker shows Arizona’s total caseload down 408,204 people, or 45%, between July 2025 and September 2026, using the state’s own figures. Texas is down 709,435 people, or 20%. Pennsylvania has 239,179 fewer participants, about 12%.

Those three states alone account for more than 1.3 million of the people who have left the program, based on the tracker’s state rows. Earlier in the year, CBPP had already flagged double-digit percentage declines in states including Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

Where the 2 million children estimate comes from

Not every state publishes how many children receive SNAP each month. In the 28 states that do, CBPP counted 1.5 million fewer children on the program since July 2025, using state agency data collected as of Oct. 22.

To get a national figure, CBPP assumed children made up about 30% of the decline in states without child data, which it calls a conservative assumption. That produces the estimate of roughly 2 million fewer children nationwide.

Some of the largest state declines show how steep the change has been for families. In Texas, the tracker shows 367,118 fewer children receiving SNAP as of September, a 21% drop. In Arizona, the child caseload is down 168,742, or 45%. In Pennsylvania, it is down 68,498, or 10%.

Why the rolls are shrinking now

“SNAP typically expands to meet need and then shrinks when economic conditions improve,” CBPP’s Joseph Llobrera wrote in an April analysis. He noted that unemployment was flat between July 2025 and March 2026, and wrote that “this dramatic six-month drop cannot be explained by a rapid improvement in people’s economic well-being.”

Instead, CBPP points to changes written into the 2025 law. It expanded work requirements for adults without young children, ended eligibility for many people with lawful immigration status, and began shifting costs to states. Llobrera noted that some states, including Illinois and Georgia, now require most households to recertify about twice as often, which raises the chance that eligible families fall off over paperwork.

The decline is the steepest in decades, according to that April analysis. The closest comparison CBPP found was after the 1996 welfare law, when participation fell 9.4%, or 2.2 million people, between March and September 1997. During the recovery from the Great Recession, caseloads fell by just over 3 million across more than three years.

What comes next for states and households

States now carry more of the bill. Since Oct. 1, 2026, they pay 75% of the cost of administering SNAP, and starting Oct. 1, 2027, states with high payment error rates will pay between 5% and 15% of benefit costs for the first time. CBPP’s state-by-state estimate puts the combined bill at roughly $9 billion.

Those costs give states a strong reason to tighten error rates, and CBPP has warned that stricter checks can push eligible people off the program along with ineligible ones. The group expects the national decline to keep growing as states fully carry out the new rules.

For families still enrolled, benefit amounts did rise slightly on Oct. 1 with the annual cost-of-living adjustment. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Department of Human Services said most recipients would see about $18 more a month and that the minimum benefit would rise from $24 to $25, with no current recipient seeing a cut from the update. The site has broken down how the maximum benefit for a family of four reached $1,023 a month, and what would happen to payments if Congress misses the Dec. 11 funding deadline.

Households that lost benefits after a work-rule notice or a missed recertification can contact their state SNAP agency to ask whether an exemption applies or whether they can reapply. The next USDA monthly release will show whether the 36.1 million figure keeps falling.

Get stories like this by email. Sign up for The Parent Diaries Letter.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Tessa Bury – CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons