Tens of thousands of Americans continue to lose access to food assistance each month, even as Congress debates slowing down major cuts to federal food stamps.

New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows more than 330,000 Americans lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, between May and June, the latest numbers available. 

More than 5 million people have lost food stamps since the enactment last July of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut taxes and federal safety net programs. The law changed SNAP eligibility rules, ended certain work requirement exemptions and shifted new costs to states that administer the federal program.

An analysis by the anti-hunger nonprofit Food Research and Action Center shows SNAP participation has decreased since the new law in every state except Alaska. State leaders there cited unique geographic and economic conditions, including higher food prices and high seasonal unemployment specific to Alaska. 

In Arizona, SNAP participation dropped by more than half since July 2025, with about 421,000 people receiving assistance this June, the center’s data shows. Louisiana’s enrollment dropped by more than 173,000 — a decrease of about 22%. Participation in Illinois dropped by more than 368,000 — a drop of about 20%.

Those numbers come as advocates pressure Congress to reverse the SNAP cuts they say will exacerbate growing hunger across the country as grocery prices continue to soar.

While nonprofits and many local, state and federal political leaders have pushed for a complete rescission of those cuts, Republicans in control of Congress have so far only signed off on delaying some of their impact.

For months, the Senate has been debating details of the farm bill, a major piece of legislation that funds SNAP, farm subsidies and rural development programs. Earlier this month, the Republican-led Senate Agriculture Committee approved on party lines a farm bill proposal that would delay for one year impending SNAP cost shifts to states. Democrats had pushed for a two-year extension.

That legislation awaits debate by the full Senate before the current legislation’s Sept. 30 expiration.

Last year’s tax and spending law requires states to cover more of SNAP’s administrative costs, and beginning in fall 2027, states for the first time will fund some benefits themselves. The new law will penalize states depending on their payment error rates — a technical calculation by the feds of SNAP overpayments and underpayments, not fraud. That change could cost states billions of dollars, raising fears about the future of the program. 

If the version of the farm bill that advanced this month is passed, states would have until October 2028 to lower their error rates before they are required to shoulder part of the costs. 

Aside from coming up with the funds, states will likely need to implement new IT and budgeting processes. Historically, SNAP benefits were not a budget line item for states because federal funds flowed directly to recipients’ benefit cards, Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, told lawmakers in July. 

“There are lots of questions about how and when the cost share will be paid,” Kallins said. “Will this be in real time as benefits are issued? Will it be reconciled at a later date? We don’t know.”

Republicans, including Arkansas U.S. Sen. John Boozman who leads the agriculture committee, have argued that error rates are evidence that improvements are needed in state administration of the program.

Anti-hunger advocacy groups say the one-year delay is insufficient to protect states and people relying on SNAP.

“We urge Senators to speak out against this flawed Farm Bill and to stop it from advancing to the floor for a vote,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said in a statement last week. “Congress must use any other legislative vehicle to reverse the SNAP cuts and address the cost shifts to states to provide meaningful assistance to both families and farmers.” 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

The official poverty rate in the United States dipped slightly by half a percentage point last year to a historic low of 10.2%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday.

The supplemental poverty rate, a more holistic figure that includes an individual’s non-cash resources, remained essentially unchanged at 13.1%, according to the bureau’s annual poverty report. The report measured 2025 numbers in comparison with 2024 and previous years.

The median household income for 2025 rose 2.6% from the previous year to $87,460, the highest on record, according to the bureau’s annual income report.

Some experts cautioned that the data doesn’t reflect the effects of new federal policy changes that will be hitting households hard this year, and that the United States should expect grimmer statistics in next September’s report. Most significantly, the massive tax and spending bill passed by Congress last year slashed Medicaid, food assistance and other public benefits that have kept millions in the country hovering above the poverty line.

This week’s numbers are not all that surprising, but they may not reflect an entirely positive picture, said Steven Durlauf, a professor and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago.

The supplemental poverty measure, he noted, is more all encompassing because it includes cash and noncash benefits and expenses, such as taxes and medical expenses, whereas the official poverty measure focuses just on cash resources. 

“There’s some basic good news there, and that is that median household income, you know, substantially increased 2.6% after inflation is nothing to to sneeze at,” Durlauf said. But he said the fact that the supplemental measure hasn’t budged could mean that people with lower incomes, and who may rely on more government benefits, aren’t really benefiting from “an economy that’s running hot.” 

Census data show women in full-time, year round work saw higher median earnings from last year by about 3%, while men in the same position saw a decline of 0.9%. 

And while it’s true there was growth in wage income this year, Durlauf said, he expects the numbers will be worse next year for people from more marginalized backgrounds. He pointed to “inequality-increasing” policies such as tax cuts for the rich, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, and major cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for people with lower incomes. 

“The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation is outstripping wage growth, and so that’s obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people,” Durlauf said. 

U.S. Census Bureau data also show 92.1% of people were insured in 2025, as compared with 92% in 2024 – reflecting the relatively flat uninsurance curve in the U.S. since 2020, when 91.4% of people were insured. 

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, estimated that roughly 15 million people would become uninsured by 2034, well more than the current estimate of 1.3 million uninsured people. 

Additionally, the number of children receiving SNAP benefits fell by 1.2 million between July 2025 and July 2026, according to an August analysis released by the left-leaning research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

“The combination of the erratic fiscal policies, the effect on energy prices via this destabilization of the Middle East, and to be blunt, the utterly irresponsible fiscal policies of the country in terms of budget deficits, are not conducive to an economic environment in which the economy does well in terms of the usual ways we think about growth,” Durlauf said. 

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Farm Foundation’s Meet Your Farmer podcast featured A.G. Kawamura in season 1, episode 4.

A.G. is a third-generation farmer in Southern California and operates Orange County Produce with his brother. He served as California Secretary of Agriculture from 2003 to 2010. He is founding chair of Solutions for Urban Agriculture, which grows produce for area food banks. He is involved in many other organizations, including as founding co-chair of Solutions from the Land, and with Farm Foundation as a Roundtable Fellow since 2011, and currently serving on the Farm Foundation Board of Directors. He also serves on the board of Western Growers.

In this episode, A.G. discusses what it means to be a landless farmer, his work to solve food insecurity, and some of the dynamics of the fresh produce industry that are not widely known.

Listen to the episode.

Music: “Country Roads” by Sergii Pavkin from Pixabay

Reach us at communication@farmfoundation.org.

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The Farm Foundation Book Club is open to Farm Foundation Round Table Fellows and meets virtually once-per-quarter to discuss works related to agriculture, industry, and our world. This blog post was submitted by Round Table Fellow Jonah Kolb, president of Moore & Warner Ag Group, LLC. Round Table Fellow John Power, president of LSC International Inc., introduced the author and guest. Round Table Fellow Bonnie Brayton, venture associate at Fulcrum Global Capital, moderated a lively and engaging discussion.

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The Farm Foundation Book Club held its third-quarter event on October 3^rd to discuss The New Breadline by Jean-Martin Bauer, which centers on hunger and food security. The wide-ranging conversation between the author and Roundtable Fellows centered around three themes: the weaponization of hunger and geopolitics of food, food insecurity, and the production and distribution system of the future.

Theme 1: The weaponization of hunger and geopolitics of food

The main cause of acute hunger is war and civil conflict.  Currently about 300 million people worldwide are experiencing conflict-driven hunger.

The international community was slow to develop laws formally forbidding the use of famine and starvation as a weapon.  While these laws now exist, a successful first prosecution is still likely years away.  The potential exists for these laws to be applied both in wars between states and in internal conflicts within states.

The price spike that occurred in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine had major impact on wheat markets especially, but a deeper crisis was averted by multilateral negotiations allowing exports to continue from Ukrainian ports.  While this resolution was an example of success in problem-solving amid conflict, it highlights the challenge to the international community when dealing with crisis:  each crisis is unique and requires an individual response.

Theme 2: Food insecurity

An estimated 1 billion people globally are food insecure, including about 40 million in the U.S.   The lack of food and nutrition is a long-term problem for each community and a wide range of strategies are being used across the world. 

Bauer was the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) director in Haiti when WFP warehouses were attacked and looted.  Social media was a major driver of this event, and in response Bauer increased transparency and communication through social media channels to better communicate the activities of WFP in Haiti. 

In addition to the war and civil conflict driving food insecurity, climate change, lack of support for local farmers, and rapid population growth contribute to hunger in many countries. Much of the projected global population growth through 2050 will take place in Africa, and Niger is a case study in the challenges of climate and growing population.  When Bauer worked in Niger 20 years ago, the population of 11 million could largely be fed by local food production which took advantage of the 90-day rain season.  Today, a population of 24 million—on its way to a projected 50 million by 2050—is experiencing more irregular rain patterns which negatively impacts that local food production.  There is likely to be a significant movement of population to regions where food is available since there is no other viable option. 

Theme 3: Production and distribution system of the future

Bauer’s family and professional background in Haiti was interwoven through much of The New Breadline and the author highlighted the challenges of opening the Haitian market for rice imports.  Haiti went from a country that provided 80% of its rice consumption domestically to a country importing 80% of its rice.

This interplay between free markets, government subsidies, and food aid and local production is a significant focus of Bauer’s writing.  Local production and distribution are keys to addressing hunger. Food aid and trade policy displacing these local systems can have long-term negative impacts on hunger.

In his book and in the Farm Foundation book club, Bauer covered the use of direct cash provided to food-insecure individuals in lieu of food distribution.  A pre-requisite of such aid is the ability of local production and distribution systems to meet food demand. In such cases, $1 of direct aid has been shown to have a 1.3 to 1.4 multiplier effect in the local economy, without contributing to inflationary food prices.

World Central Kitchen, which has been active both in the domestic U.S. and countries around the world, sources much of its ingredients to produce prepared meals from local producers, which reinforces local food production capabilities, all the more important in times of duress.

Conflict, undercapitalized small farmers, and climate change will continue to contribute to global hunger. Bauer encourages a push-back against “selective empathy,” the idea that there are good disaster and bad disasters.  There are, more simply, just humans in need.  Fully addressing hunger requires more elastic thinking on building resilient independent food systems on a global scale, operated at a local level. 

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