Arizona’s drop in SNAP participation signals potential nationwide impact of Trump legislation

More than 400,000 Arizonans have lost their SNAP benefits since July — the largest decline in the nation by a wide margin — as an underfunded state agency administered changes called for in President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The drop represents nearly 47% of the state’s participants in the program better known as food stamps and includes about 180,000 children, according to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which administers the program.

On Wednesday, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released data through February showing that the reduction in Arizona has far outstripped other states. After Arizona, the largest loss of participants was in Florida, where less than 16% of recipients lost benefits since July, according to the center’s analysis.

Arizona officials attribute the plunging caseload to swift implementation of policy changes forced by the bill, including new work requirements.

But interviews suggest that Arizona’s efforts to comply, combined with cuts to the agency that runs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, have contributed to the decline — making it more difficult to apply and causing people who are eligible to be denied. The state’s drop has exceeded previous projections.

“Arizona is just the alarm bell,” said Joseph Palomino, executive director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, a nonpartisan advocacy organization. “This is likely going to happen in every state.”

The bill, which places a larger share of the program’s costs onto states, expanded work requirements for some recipients and eliminated work exemptions for others, such as people who are homeless or aging out of foster care.

In addition, the bill mandates that states reduce their payment error rates — which measure the accuracy of eligibility and payment determinations — or face millions in penalties. Although some changes don’t fully take effect until the fall, experts say Arizona’s experience suggests people are already going hungry as a result of the legislation’s changes.

Charisma Garcia, a 25-year-old mother of two, has tried for months to obtain an interview to complete a SNAP application. After weeks calling the agency only to get a recorded message, she woke before sunrise recently to wait in line at an Arizona Department of Economic Security office in south Phoenix.

A security guard told her the agency wasn’t doing in-person interviews, so she headed to a food bank instead. She needed to feed her children, ages 3 and 6.

“I need to do the thing that gets me the food,” she said.

Brett Bezio, a spokesperson for DES, said the agency is focusing on reducing the state’s error rate to ensure “the program remains a stable resource for vulnerable Arizonans.” Although Arizona’s rate of 8.8% is below the national average, the new federal regulations require that it be brought down to 6%. If officials don’t reduce the rate, Arizona could face penalties of $195.4 million in two years, which is more than double the amount it pays to operate the program. The department said it expects participation to stabilize in the months ahead.

The choices Arizona is making are “a reality that every state is facing,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Congress created a “terrible incentive” by requiring states to reduce their error rate and shoulder more of the program’s costs, she said.

Nationwide, SNAP enrollment plummeted 8% from December 2024 to December 2025, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP. Trump has touted it as a success.
“We lifted 3.3 million Americans off of food stamps,” he said, referencing figures since he took office. “That’s a record.”

Asked about the sharp decline in SNAP participants, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ press secretary, Liliana Soto, blamed Trump administration policies, which have “increased bureaucracy and red tape on states across the country, and forced DES to take difficult but necessary steps to reduce the state’s payment error rate.” Hobbs’ administration is taking these steps “to avoid staggering fines of hundreds of millions of dollars that would further endanger food assistance for vulnerable Arizonans,” Soto said in a statement.

But other factors have aggravated Arizona’s situation. In 2021, the state Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, passed a flat 2.5% income tax largely benefiting the wealthy, which has forced more than $1 billion in spending cuts and fund swaps to balance the state budget in subsequent years. (Ducey has defended the flat tax as necessary to ensure the state continues to be competitive and “a jobs magnet and generator of opportunity.”)

Last summer, DES also laid off about 500 employees in response to the elimination of federal grants and in anticipation of additional federal cuts. Officials said that about 160 eligibility specialists lost their jobs, a 40% decline since July 2024.

In December, Hobbs, a Democrat, allocated $7.5 million to DES, most of which was used to hire more than 100 workers and increase overtime to handle SNAP cases. A spokesperson said applications are also slowed by “1980s technology” it uses to administer benefits.

Hobbs asked for an additional $48.4 million in her 2027 budget proposal to help the department administer SNAP.  The most recent federal data, from 2023, shows that the state spends $70 million to operate the $2 billion program.

Meanwhile, some seeking SNAP assistance told ProPublica that their applications remain in limbo, sometimes for months.

Garcia, the mother of two, said she will keep trying to obtain the benefits. She’s looking for work as a cook after being laid off from a car wash in January. Her family is living with her grandparents, where groceries are shared among six people.

Sometimes, her 3-year-old pats his belly when he’s hungry for his favorite fruits like strawberries. At times, she hasn’t received fruit in the boxes she receives from the food bank.

“I’m in a pinch,” she said. “I’m struggling.

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