As food prices have risen, Americans are being kicked off food stamp support at record rates, as a result of last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cuts $186 billion over 10 years to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). While the cuts in SNAP are less than 20% of the cuts to Medicaid, in the first six months of cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 3 million have already lost the assistance.
Early results from Florida indicate that 300,000 have lost all assistance, about 10% of the CBPP’s figure for the entire country. Florida’s reported loss was 47,000 more (or over 18% more) than what the CBPP had estimated for Florida, and over 65% above what the state had initially estimated. Yet, the state provided an interesting breakdown, showing that just over half of those losing SNAP eligibility were the homeless.
While Florida’s initial drop was almost 10% of their beneficiaries, some states exceeded that—such as Arizona (42%), Georgia (24%), Virginia (12%) and Tennessee (12%). Already in 2023, some 13.5% of households were food insecure. Proponents of the SNAP cuts expect states to step in and fund such food assistance.
According to the estimate of the Urban Institute, a total of 22.3 million families, including 5.3 million working families, will lose some or all of their benefits, with an average monthly loss of $146 per affected household. The average yearly savings to the federal budget, calculated at $18.6 billion, is less than 4% of the planned increase in military spending for 2027 or less than 2% of the estimated new tax breaks for the top 1% of the richest Americans.
