Republican supporters frequently emphasized that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s changes, also known as food stamps, doesn’t change vulnerable people as a House committee debate President Donald Trump’s personal domestic legislation expenses next year.
Rep. Glenn “G T” Thompson, a Republican from Pennsylvania and the head of the House Agriculture Committee, said SNAP reforms would “restore integrity” to the program and make sure it works for the “most vulnerable among us, including children.”
Rep. John Rose, a Republican from Tennessee, called the passage of the invoice a “historic success” that had guarantee” those in need can continue to receive the help they need.
And Rep. Republican from South Dakota, Dusty Johnson, claimed the bill had allocate resources to the “neediest” Americans. ” Your gains are unaffected if you are a pregnant woman. Your rewards are unaffected by this act if you have young children at home. Your rewards are undetectable by this bill if you are disabled.
However, a ProPublica study found that nearly a year after the measure was passed, there are still at least 776, 000 children receiving food aid. Of the 1, 670, 011 people who are no longer receiving benefits in those states, 776, 134, or 46 % of those who were children, program participation was broken down by age in at least 12 states.
Another analysis came to the same conclusion: Only last month, the democratic Center on Budget and Policy Priorities discovered that there were fewer than 700, 000 children receiving food assistance.
205, 223 children have not received the advantage since July 2025, which is the largest percent drop in Lock participants in the country, or 55 %. The second-largest percent of children’s deaths occurred in Louisiana, 22 %.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates SNAP, hasn’t provided a detailed analysis of the effects on children who were aided by the software, but preliminary statistics indicate that 4.3 million fewer people received SNAP in February 2026, leaving 37.8 million people as beneficiaries.
Children are extremely becoming” money damage,” according to Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, despite the fact that the proposal’s changes weren’t intended to affect them.
According to Bergh, states are likely not attempting to make the program visible if they are trying to comply with the court’s changes to SNAP. According to other experts, people may get turned away from the program because of the more formal paperwork requirements to remain available.
While preparing for two significant price shifts, states are required to establish work requirements on the majority of adult recipients. Says will begin paying 75 % of the agency’s administrative fees starting in October. 50 % of those expenses are now being paid for by state.
Starting in October 2027, state may be required to pay a larger share of SNAP benefits based on their failure rate. Failure prices are a result of SNAP benefits being over or underpaid. According to USDA, these problems are typically the problem of the state agency or the SNAP victim, which describes them as “largely unintentional.”
It will be more difficult for low-income families to get the benefits if a condition company is experiencing staffing shortages and a problem implementing new regulations, according to Bergh. People are “falling through the breaks”
According to the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, which administers SNAP in the state, the percentage of SNAP applicants who called an assistance line and couldn’t reach a worker increased from 61 % in November to nearly 81 % in March. A request for comment was never received by the state firm.
A USDA spokesman declined to respond to ProPublica’s inquiries regarding the number of kids who had lost access to SNAP. There are no shortage of resources available to the most vulnerable among us, including children, according to the director.
Rose, Thompson, and Johnson, the three members of the House Agriculture Committee who defended the act last year before it was passed, did not respond to ProPublica’s inquiries about their remarks now that so many kids no longer receive SNAP benefits.
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, contacted Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about her latest assertion that the SNAP program is no longer available to millions of people. When other states are taken into consideration, he said,” that number is going to be in the millions” if more than 700, 000 children have been dropped in the 12 states that report those numbers.
Rollins responded,” The 700, 000 number of children is incorrect,” arguing that the majority of Lock participants were “fraudulent.”
She continued,” That is not a nonpartisan group that gave you that number.” ( ProPublica independently verified the figures provided by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. )
McGovern claimed to have spoken with individuals who have received foods support. These are people who actually need and rely on this kind of food aid to deliver basic nutrition to their families, he said.
According to Parke Wilde, a food scholar at Tufts University, the pressure to reduce problem rates” creates a temptation for the states to knock off working families.” Running people may have higher incomes, making it more difficult for state agencies to accurately assess benefits.
They kind of acknowledge that they want the SNAP program’s size to get smaller when they say we want to keep it for those with the greatest needs, he said.
A smaller program didn’t save money in the long run, according to Mariana Chilton, an expert in child poverty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. According to research, youngsters who receive SNAP benefits are healthier, have better scientific results, use institutions less frequently, and have better mental health as teenagers.
She referred to the position as a “public health problems” in its development. She said,” When children are not good, this affects them immediately and it affects them lifetimes,” referring to a head injury as a precursor to hunger in early adolescence.
Organizations are feeling the effects as Arizona’s SNAP membership falls. According to Milt Liu, the chief executive officer, St. Mary’s Food Bank, the state’s largest, there has been a 15 % increase in need this year, which means 300, 000 more people have come to the store.
” We’re seeing that in our line every day, and it’s important for everyone to understand that policies have implications for people on the top,” he said.
Ana Alvarez waited in a range of cars at a Phoenix St. Mary’s foods bank on a new morning. Alvarez, a mother of five who works at a cafe, started attending St. Mary’s after losing her SNAP benefits in September.
She reapplied for SNAP with the Arizona Department of Economic Security in December, but the application is still pending. The office did not respond to inquiries about the delay.
She uses deals and has planned trips to the park and eateries with her kids. The cafe where she works is about to start its slow time. Alvarez wonders how she will pay for her car, book, and electronic bill as the summer temperatures rise.
She gets in touch with the company at least once per week about her program. When she called, a employee told her what other people have done in the past: She will have to maintain waiting.
After Trump alterations the national food plan, more than 770, 000 children no longer receive SNAP benefits, according to the article ProPublica.
