4.3 Million Americans Lost Food Assistance in Six Months. Congress Planned It That Way.

Update, June 8, 2026: More than 3.5 million people have lost SNAP access since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act took effect last summer, PBS NewsHour reported. The law raised the age threshold for work requirements from 54 to 64 and expanded documentation demands on both recipients and state agencies.

Arizona has recorded the steepest state-level drop, with participation falling 51 percent, according to estimates cited by PBS. States also face fiscal penalties for high payment error rates, which Harvard professor of public health policy Sara Naomi Bleich said has pushed some states to remove eligible recipients rather than process their paperwork within the federal 30-day deadline. When a state misses that deadline, the applicant is automatically cut off and must restart the enrollment process from scratch.

Bleich told PBS that SNAP fraud stands at 1.6 percent and that the new rules do not target fraud in any form. She said the enrollment declines reflect eligible people being pushed out by documentation burdens, not an improved economy.

Update, June 19, 2026: The Trump administration’s H.R. 1, which took effect this spring, will strip SNAP benefits from an estimated 360,000 Illinoisans by expanding work requirements and eliminating benefits for lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, according to the governor’s office. Beginning Oct. 1, the law will shift 25% more administrative costs to Illinois, adding an estimated $80 million annually to the state budget, as reported by Capitol News Illinois.

H.R. 1 also eliminated SNAP-Ed, the federal nutrition education program that connected Illinois residents to Link Match, which matches SNAP purchases dollar for dollar at farmers markets and local grocers. Experimental Station administers Link Match at 157 locations across Illinois, and policy organizer Reese Amyx of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance said farmers market sales of roughly $40,000 a year can determine whether a small farm remains operational.

The Illinois General Assembly included a one-time $400 payment in its 2026 budget for households losing SNAP benefits, but state officials have not confirmed whether that payment will cover gaps for recipients or the local farmers and food businesses that rely on their spending.

Update, June 30, 2026: New data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Georgia had a SNAP payment error rate of 15.2%, one of the highest in the country, against a national average of 10.6%. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins cited the figures as evidence of poor accountability in state-level program administration.

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, all states must begin covering 75% of their SNAP administrative costs in October 2026. States with error rates above 6% will also face penalties requiring them to cover between 5% and 15% of their benefit costs starting in fiscal year 2028, though Georgia is among six states that qualify for an additional one-year delay on that requirement.

Georgia’s new state budget, which takes effect July 1, allocates $6.9 million specifically to reduce the state’s payment error rate, according to Daniel Kanso, vice president of public policy at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. Georgia’s Department of Human Services, which serves roughly 1.2 million SNAP recipients per month, is reviewing options that include paying penalties, filing appeals, or reinvesting half of any fine into program improvements, as reported by the Georgia Recorder.

Update, July 9, 2026: Beginning in fall 2027, states will for the first time be required to fund a portion of SNAP benefits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and analyses of newly released U.S. Department of Agriculture data show 36 states could collectively owe more than $9 billion. States with payment error rates above 6% must cover between 5% and 15% of their benefit payments, and nearly half of the 36 affected states face individual liabilities of $100 million or more per year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Texas alone faces an estimated $725 million liability, and New York could owe more than $1 billion.

New Jersey Human Services Commissioner Stephen Cha called the error rate measurement “fundamentally flawed” after USDA released FY2025 data showing $10.1 billion in collective improper payments nationwide. New Jersey reduced its error rate from 14.33% to 6.86% but still faces an estimated $100 million penalty. Cha joined state and county officials in urging Congress and the Trump administration to eliminate or delay the cost-sharing requirements before the fall 2027 deadline.

A spring 2026 survey by the Urban Institute and the American Public Human Services Association found that 11% of 39 responding SNAP agencies identified full program withdrawal as a potential risk. In Massachusetts, nearly 175,000 people lost SNAP benefits between July 2024 and May 2025. A pending Massachusetts legislative budget proposal would cut $26 million from the Department of Transitional Assistance, according to the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.