An analysis of 12 states' data found that nearly a year after a federal law changed SNAP, 776,134 children in those states are no longer receiving benefits.
The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found there were 700,000 fewer children receiving food assistance, and initial U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show 4.3 million fewer people received SNAP nationwide in February 2026 compared with February 2025, leaving 37.8 million participants.
Arizona has seen the largest percentage decline: 205,223 children are no longer receiving the benefit since July 2025, a 55% drop, and Louisiana had the second largest percent decline among children, 22%.
States are required to impose work requirements for most adult recipients and face two major cost shifts: in October states will begin covering 75% of the program’s administrative costs, up from 50%, and starting October 2027 states will pay a larger share of SNAP benefits based on their error rate.
Experts said increased paperwork and administrative burdens may be pushing people off the program, and Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said children are increasingly "collateral damage."
In Massachusetts, the share of SNAP applicants who called an assistance line and couldn't reach a worker rose from 61% in November to nearly 81% in March, the Department of Transitional Assistance said; the state agency did not respond to requests for comment.
A USDA spokesperson said, "There is no shortage of resources for the most vulnerable among us, including children."
The three members of the House Agriculture Committee who defended last year’s bill — Rep. John Rose, Rep. Glenn "GT" Thompson and Rep. Dusty Johnson — did not respond to requests for comment, and Rep. Jim McGovern said he has talked to people who have lost food assistance and that "These are people who actually need and rely on this food assistance to provide basic nutrition for their families."
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins responded to McGovern's comments, saying, "The 700,000 number of children is not correct," and adding, "That is not a nonpartisan group that gave you that number," contending most people who were kicked off SNAP were "fraudulent."
As SNAP participation dropped in Arizona, St. Mary’s Food Bank, the largest in the state, saw a 15% increase in need this year, translating into 300,000 more visits, Milt Liu, the chief executive officer, said.
On a recent morning, Ana Alvarez, a single mother of five who works at a restaurant, started coming to St. Mary’s after she lost her SNAP benefits in September; she said she reapplied in December and the application remains pending and that the agency did not respond to questions about its backlog.
Parke Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University, said pressure to lower error rates "creates a temptation for the states to bump off working families," and Mariana Chilton, an expert in child hunger at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said research shows children who receive SNAP benefits are healthier and called the situation a "public health crisis" in the making.