Experts say policy changes, not fraud or economy, drove 4.3 million off food stamps

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters this week that nearly 4.3 million Americans have moved off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, citing fraud crackdowns and a strengthening economy. Experts who study food insecurity say the decline is instead driven by eligibility restrictions enacted by Congress last summer.

“As of just a couple of days ago, we now have moved 4.3 million Americans off of the food stamp program. A lot of that is fraud. A lot of it is people taking the program that shouldn’t have been. And a lot of it is just a better economy,” Rollins said.

Preliminary government data confirms the raw participation numbers. Approximately 42.83 million people received SNAP benefits in January 2025. By January 2026, that figure fell to about 38.55 million, a drop of nearly 10 percent. The decline accelerated sharply after President Donald Trump signed the 940-page spending and tax legislation, formally known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, into law in July. Participation fell by 743,572 between January and June of 2025, and by roughly 3.47 million between July 2025 and January 2026.

Food policy researchers and the Congressional Budget Office point to the legislative changes rather than economic factors as the primary driver. The CBO projected in August 2025 that provisions in the bill would reduce average monthly SNAP participation by roughly 2.4 million people between 2025 and 2034, and estimated the changes would cut $186 billion in federal SNAP spending over a decade.

“What we’ve seen in terms of the data is that the trend in participation declines seems to be related to the program being harder to access,” said Roger Figueroa, an assistant professor at Cornell University who studies food insecurity.

Federal fraud data does not support a mass-exodus driven by enforcement. In fiscal year 2023, the latest full year of available data, 41,476 participants were disqualified from SNAP for fraud. That total includes applicants who provided erroneous information and individuals who exchanged benefits for cash or ineligible items. Against a total caseload of 42,176,946 participants, the fraud disqualifications represented less than 1 percent.

“I don’t see any evidence supporting a significant reduction in fraud as a driver of what we’re seeing as far as declining SNAP participation,” said Caitlin Caspi, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut.

When asked for data backing the claim that fraud reduction caused the steep participation drop, the USDA directed reporters to external reports from the New York Post and the Foundation for Government Accountability regarding broad-based categorical eligibility. That policy allows states flexibility in determining SNAP eligibility for recipients of non-cash benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The Trump administration has signaled an intent to eliminate the policy, but it remains legally operational in most states.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act fundamentally altered SNAP’s work requirement structure. Previously, able-bodied adults without dependents age 55 and older were exempt from strict work mandates. The legislation extended that work requirement up to age 64 and lowered the age of a dependant child that qualifies a parent for exemption from 18 to 14. It also removed blanket exemptions for homeless individuals, veterans, and former foster youth age 24 or younger.

Affected participants can now satisfy the stricter work requirement by working or participating in a work program for at least 80 hours a month. The work does not need to be paid.

“Families have lots of really complicated situations and you can’t just say to people, in 10 days or in one month, go find 80 hours a month of work when you don’t have the skills and those jobs aren’t available in your community,” said Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan.

Economic indicators present a mixed picture that further complicates the administration’s narrative. The U.S. economy expanded at a modest 2 percent pace from January through March 2026, rebounding from a 43-day government shutdown late last year. Wage growth hit 3.4 percent against 3.3 percent inflation in March. Rollins claimed this was the first time wages outpaced inflation since early 2021, but economic data shows similar gaps occurred in prior years.

Despite these top-line figures, food insecurity remains high. Food prices rose 3.1 percent in 2025 and are projected to climb another 2.9 percent in 2026. Economic gains in 2025 skewed toward higher-income households, while lower-income households faced weaker income growth and persistent cost pressures.

“We have a persistent poverty problem in this country,” Bauer said. “And we have huge economic disparities. And most people, even in good economic times, are not able to pull their families out of poverty.”

Unemployment ticked up during the period of steepest SNAP decline, contradicting the idea that a robust labor market naturally phased participants out of the program.

“We’re not seeing a linear kind of drop-off,” Caspi said. “We are not seeing, if you look at the unemployment rates, things that might be an indicator that a strong economy was driving this change. We don’t see, for example, a pattern of decline in unemployment that would match the pattern of decline in SNAP participation.”

“It shouldn’t be surprising that we are seeing this decline and it shouldn’t be a leap in logic to think that these declines are attributable to H.R. 1,” Caspi said.