SNAP Should Feed Families, Not Waste Taxpayer Dollars

SNAP enrollment is finally moving in the right direction. A new analysis from Jack Salmon at The Unseen and The Unsaid finds that participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fell by nearly 4.3 million people between January 2025 and January 2026, with roughly 3.5 million of that decline occurring after Congress passed and President Trump signed H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

This is good news for taxpayers and for the program itself because SNAP exists to provide food assistance to people who truly need it. It should not operate as an open-ended welfare program with weak eligibility checks, loose state oversight, and taxpayer dollars exposed to waste, fraud, and abuse.

SNAP Grew Too Large and Too Expensive

The pandemic expansion of the welfare state pushed SNAP far beyond its normal size. Salmon notes that SNAP participation remains about 1.7 million people above pre-pandemic levels even after the recent decline, while average inflation-adjusted costs per household remain about 18 percent higher than before the pandemic. 

SNAP stayed elevated because Washington kept too many pandemic-era welfare policies in place after the emergency had passed. Pandemic-era policies made benefits larger and easier to keep, while work and work-training requirements were broadly suspended. States received flexibility on eligibility verification and recertification, and benefit levels were increased through emergency policies before being ratcheted higher through administrative action.

The result was a program that stayed too large after the emergency passed. Salmon points out that SNAP enrollment peaked around 43 million people in 2020 and remained elevated long after the economy reopened.

Congress Put States Back on the Hook

The 2025 law made serious progress toward restoring program integrity. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee, led by Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, said the agriculture title was designed to “restore integrity to the SNAP program” by reinforcing work, rooting out waste, and creating long-overdue accountability incentives.

Those reforms were needed because SNAP costs rose from $60 billion in 2019 to $110 billion annually, while enrollment grew from 36 million to 42 million. Chairman Thompson also pointed to more than $13 billion in erroneous SNAP payments in 2023. 

The law changes the incentives that helped create the problem. For too long, states administered SNAP while the federal government picked up the full cost of benefits, which gave states too little reason to reduce errors, tighten oversight, or protect taxpayers.

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee later pointed to the FY 2024 SNAP payment error rate as proof that state accountability was overdue. The national payment error rate was 10.93 percent, and the committee argued that tying a state cost share to error rates would encourage better oversight and reduce waste.

State accountability is the right standard because states make eligibility and payment decisions, and taxpayers should not be forced to absorb the full cost when those decisions are wrong.

Work Requirements Protect the Program

SNAP should be available for the truly needy, not used as a permanent substitute for work by able-bodied adults who can support themselves.

The 2025 law tightened work requirements for able-bodied adults and reduced the ability of states to use broad waivers. Salmon notes that the law increased the age threshold for work requirements and tightened eligibility rules for certain non-citizen groups.

Those reforms protect limited resources for the people the program was created to serve. A working taxpayer should not be forced to fund benefits for able-bodied adults who refuse basic work expectations.

SNAP Should Buy Food, Not Junk

Eligibility reform is only part of the job because SNAP should also serve a nutritional purpose.

CFE has already argued that SNAP should buy groceries, not candy and soda. Welfare exists to prevent hunger and malnutrition, not to subsidize junk food with taxpayer money.

Several states have moved to block SNAP dollars from being spent on soda and candy. CFE noted that this reform builds on the same principle behind the 2025 eligibility changes: welfare programs should be targeted, conditional, and focused on genuine need.

That principle should guide the entire program. SNAP benefits should help families buy real food, including meat, eggs, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, rather than underwrite soda companies or candy makers.

CFE Takeaway

The recent decline in SNAP enrollment shows that reform can work. Congress and President Trump took a major step in 2025 by tightening eligibility, strengthening work expectations, limiting future benefit expansions, and making states more accountable for errors.

More work remains because SNAP is still larger and more expensive than it was before the pandemic. Payment errors remain too high, and taxpayer dollars are still too often spent in ways that do not match the program’s purpose.

In a time of limited federal resources, welfare programs must be reserved for the truly needy and deserving. Even then, SNAP should do what its name promises by helping people buy healthy, nutritious food.