Something unusual is happening to America’s largest food-assistance program: millions of people are disappearing from the rolls much faster than federal forecasters expected. Newly released federal data show SNAP enrollment declined from 42.2 million participants in May 2025 to about 36.6 million in May 2026, a drop of more than 13% in just one year. That puts participation around a level the Congressional Budget Office had not expected to see until approximately 2030, according to an Associated Press analysis of the latest numbers. New work rules are part of the story, but state implementation problems, paperwork requirements, changing eligibility, and potentially improving household circumstances are also contributing, and researchers don’t yet know how much each factor explains. The map below is particularly revealing because the decline isn’t evenly distributed: some states have lost more than one-third of their caseload since last summer, while others have experienced comparatively modest changes.
