Michael Wisehart, leader of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, reportedly said that Arizona moved quickly to overhaul its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility screenings after the OBBBA passed, leading to application processing backlogs that caused participation to fall. He believes some residents who lost SNAP are still eligible for the benefit and said other states could see similarly stark SNAP declines when they follow suit.
“There are states, very large states, of both political persuasions, that are reaching out to us to say, ‘All right, you’re a little bit ahead of where we are, we’re seeing the exact same trajectory that you all already have seen, what can you do to help?”’ Wisehart said.
SNAP participation fell 10-12 percent in eight other states, and Georgia marked a 24 percent drop. (The only exception to the across-the-board decline in SNAP participation is Guam, which saw a 2 percent rise).
Overall, nearly 3.5 million people lost benefits across the 50 states, D.C., Guam and the Virgin Islands. Georgia had the most residents leave SNAP, at nearly 460,600 people, followed by Arizona, Florida, California and Texas.
Big Changes
The OBBBA made major eligibility changes. For one, it expanded work requirements to people formerly exempted, including veterans, people experiencing homelessness, youth who’ve aged out of the foster care system, caregivers of children ages 14 or older and adults ages 55-64. Most states had until late 2025 to implement those requirements. The full effects of the work expansion may not yet be evident, however. For one, some states, territories, and even local governments had waivers allowing them to delay implementation until certain dates in 2026. Also, some existing SNAP recipients may not have yet had to prove compliance with the work requirements, depending on when they’re due to next recertify their eligibility.
Further, the law revoked some waivers that had exempted people living in areas with few available jobs from complying with work requirements. The USDA ended or declined to renew waivers that would’ve extended beyond Nov. 2, 2025.
The law also required states to get their error rates — how often they over- or underpay benefits — below a certain level, or take on new costs.
States’ declining SNAP rolls might indicate that former participants couldn’t or wouldn’t meet the work requirements, struggled to manage the additional paperwork and processes involved with proving they’re still eligible or became financially stable enough not to need nutrition benefits. It could also reflect a cancellation of benefits for people the law disqualified from the program: the OBBBA removed eligibility for certain lawfully present immigrants, such as human trafficking victims. The USDA figures don’t cover the full impact of that change, however, because 21 states were given until April 9, 2026, to start disqualifying this group, and the USDA data doesn’t extend that far.
Work Impacts?
The Trump administration asserted in June 2025 that too many SNAP recipients weren’t working, and said that “the fraud rate is high.”
In his February 2026 State of the Union address, President Donald Trump celebrated the falling SNAP enrollments, saying, “more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country … in one year we have lifted 2.4 million Americans — a record — off of food stamps.” (He appears to be citing August 2025 Congressional Budget Office estimates, which projected that new work requirements would “reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month over the 2025-2034 period.”)
But the dwindling number of people receiving nutrition benefits doesn’t seem to have been matched by a surge in people getting work or beginning to look for it. The unemployment rate reflects the portion of the labor force who are jobless, looking for a job and available for work; it did not move as dramatically as SNAP participation did. Arizona and Georgia each saw a 0.2 percentage point increase in their unemployment rates during that July 2025-January 2026 period when their SNAP enrollment plunged, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The eight states experiencing a 10-12 percent drop in SNAP beneficiaries saw unemployment rise by zero to 0.6 percentage points. Overall, 32 states and D.C. saw unemployment rates increase, while the rest saw it remain flat or decline.
What’s Going On With Arizona?
Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Wisehart reportedly said a significant reason for the state’s declining SNAP participation is that many people are waiting a long time for their SNAP applications to get approved, and that new requirements for more documentation have made the process harder for applicants and staff.
"Any time you require more documentation, it makes it both harder for the individual that’s applying and harder for the person who’s doing [the] work to assess the eligibility,” he said. “Those two things have really conspired to create an environment where it is definitely more challenging to get access to needed SNAP benefits.”
The state added more steps and safeguards to its eligibility checks to reduce its error rate and avoid financial penalty. Compounded by the state’s staff shortage and lack of modern eligibility technology, this has led to a backlog in processing applications, he said. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader John Kavanagh told Capitol Media Services that such a big drop indicates that Arizona must have had a high rate of fraud.
Maps by Carl Smith; written by Jule Pattison-Gordon.
