5.2M Americans lose SNAP benefits as stricter work rules take effect

Lori Covelli was counting down the days. The 53-year-old social worker in Kenosha, Wisconsin, had been collecting $760 a month in food stamps while unemployed, and she knew the rules: once she turned 54, the work requirements that governed her benefits would expire. She could hold on until then. Staff at her state's SNAP office had told her as much. Then, this summer, a letter arrived that erased that timeline entirely.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, had extended the work requirement age limit from 54 to 64. Covelli, still years away from that threshold, watched her benefits disappear. She applies to roughly ten jobs each week. The economy, she says, is not cooperating. "That's a long way off," she said of her new target age. "At this point, SNAP benefits are essentially over for me."

Covelli is one of 5.2 million Americans who have lost food-stamp benefits since the law took effect, according to analysis from the Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger advocacy group. SNAP enrollment has fallen to its lowest point since 2019. The changes are sweeping and structural. Starting October 1, states must cover 75 percent of the program's administrative costs, up from 50 percent. Beginning in October 2027, states with high payment error rates will shoulder up to 15 percent of benefit costs—a burden the federal government previously carried entirely. Under the new work rules, recipients aged 18 to 64 must work or volunteer at least 80 hours per month. The White House framed these changes as necessary to ensure program sustainability and crack down on fraud. Anti-hunger experts and the recipients themselves tell a different story.

Arizona has felt the shock most acutely. Enrollment dropped 53 percent over a single year—the steepest decline of any state. The state's Department of Economic Security described the law as implementing "the most sweeping structural changes and strict administrative penalties seen in a generation." The agency has since stabilized the program and added 57,000 enrollees between April and August, but the initial disruption was severe. Other states are watching their own numbers fall and calculating costs they may not be able to absorb. Alabama's SNAP director warned that payment error penalties could cost the state $174 million in additional expenses. He did not rule out the possibility that Alabama might withdraw from the program entirely.

For those still receiving benefits, the math has become brutal. The average SNAP benefit is $6.25 per person per day, or roughly $190 per month. According to the Urban Institute, that sum cannot cover a typical meal in 99 percent of U.S. counties. Grocery prices have jumped 32 percent since early 2020. Gas costs $4.46 a gallon on average, up roughly 50 percent since before recent geopolitical tensions. Lekishia Rivera, a single mother in Fort Pierce, Florida, recently lost her daughter's SNAP eligibility after reapplying for Medicaid. Her family's monthly food assistance fell from $546 to $300. "I try my hardest not to go over the budget, which is extremely hard when you have a child," she said.

Angie Aranda, 49, of Pueblo, Colorado, is navigating a different trap. She has Crohn's disease and is seeking a medical waiver from the work requirements so she can pursue remote jobs with bathroom access. The law changed the rules for families with children: before, parents of any minor qualified for an exemption; now, only parents of children under 14 do. Her children are 17 and 14. She no longer qualifies. She has submitted about 30 job applications and is struggling to get clear guidance from her state's SNAP office on how to apply for a waiver. Her family's roughly $900 in monthly food aid hangs in the balance. "I went to school to not be in this situation," she said. "And me being sick now, I have to prove that I'm sick over and over and over again."

Food banks are reporting surging demand. Cyndi Kirkhart, CEO of Facing Hunger Food Bank in Huntington, West Virginia, said the new age limit is hitting her community with particular force. Many people aged 54 to 64 are caring for grandchildren whose parents are struggling with opioid addiction. They no longer qualify for SNAP exemptions but still cannot work full-time and provide childcare. "This is the pandemic on steroids with little food and little money," Kirkhart said. A Purdue University study released last year found that food insecurity—the lack of consistent access to nutritious food—rose to 14 percent of households between January and October 2025, up from 12.5 percent in 2024. The researchers cited inflation and SNAP cuts as driving factors. The U.S. Department of Agriculture halted its annual food insecurity study in 2025, calling it redundant and costly. Anti-hunger advocates are pushing to reinstate it, arguing that the nation needs to understand the full scope of what these changes have wrought.

Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, called the administration's overhaul "absolutely unprecedented." The stricter work requirements and the states' scramble to manage new funding obligations are creating confusion and application backlogs across SNAP agencies. "There is a lot of chaos going on in SNAP, and it is harming the people the program was designed to serve," she said. Some states may not survive it. As October arrives and new cost-sharing rules take hold, the question is no longer whether SNAP will change—it already has—but whether the program itself will endure in states that cannot absorb the financial penalties.