Number of Children Receiving SNAP Continues to Drop Under Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law

In the 19 states with publicly available data or that have shared unpublished data, the harmful Republican reconciliation law has taken SNAP food assistance away from more than 1 million children since it was enacted in July 2025. That accounts for nearly half of the 2.4-million-person decline in SNAP participation among people of all ages in those states. (See table.) Nationwide, it’s very likely that the number of children receiving SNAP has dropped by more than 1.5 million since July 2025, based on our conservative estimate (see methodological note below). The sharp participation declines likely reflect, in part, the 2025 Republican reconciliation law’s shift of large SNAP benefit costs to states, with the amount states owe based on their payment error rate. Without immediate congressional action to delay this cost shift for all states, the unfolding emergency will only worsen as more children are cut off from the food assistance their families need to afford nutritious food.

The 2025 Republican reconciliation law’s cost shift has led states to take steps that are making it harder for eligible people to receive SNAP, including families with children. Losing SNAP also makes it harder for children in families with low incomes to qualify for other food assistance, such as WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) and free school meals — jeopardizing the short- and long-term health, education, and economic benefits of nutrition programs for our children and society. While cutting SNAP eligibility for children was not a stated target of the Republican reconciliation law’s proponents, the cost shift and resulting access barriers are causing serious losses of food assistance for children in households with low incomes.

Under the harmful 2025 Republican reconciliation law, states will be required to start paying a share of SNAP benefit costs starting October 2027, which could total hundreds of millions of dollars in many states. States that are unable or unwilling to pay the full cost will either have to take steps to further restrict access or drop out of the program entirely — some states have already indicated the potential risk of withdrawing from or pausing SNAP. Congress should delay the new law’s cost shift for two years for all states, not just the few states already granted a delay under the new law, to give them time to improve payment accuracy without taking food assistance away from eligible people.

New access barriers and inadequate funding to implement the program changes appear to be having a large impact on children. The table below shows SNAP participation data for children for states that publicly report these data or do not currently publish participation data publicly but have shared unpublished data. While it’s uncertain which factors are the primary drivers of the participation decline in these states, those declines cannot be explained by an improvement in people’s economic well-being. Nationally, unemployment has remained steady, real wages declined year-over-year in April, food insecurity remained high in 2025, and grocery costs are rising.

Methodological Note:

Among states that have provided participation data for children, the share of the state’s total SNAP participation decline that is from fewer children participating ranged from roughly 30 percent to about 60 percent. To calculate this national estimate, we conservatively took the low end of this range and assumed the decline in the number of children comprised roughly 30 percent of the total participation decline in states where we do not have participation data for children. For most of the 19 states, the number of children participating in SNAP is posted publicly. For six states ― Alabama, Arkansas, California, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Vermont ― CBPP is using unpublished data from the state agency.