COMMENTARY: Don’t mourn the nation’s falling food-stamp rolls

COMMENTARY: Don’t mourn the nation’s falling food‑stamp rolls By Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman InsideSources.com August 20, 2026 - 9:00 pm When Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, more than 42 million Americans—roughly one in eight—were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Since then, enrollment has dropped by five million. Critics call this decline “incredibly alarming” and “unconscionable,” but the drop largely reflects states ending pandemic‑era waivers and relaxed eligibility rules that had kept caseloads artificially high. The decline also signals that many formerly eligible adults are finding work or no longer qualify for benefits. The more pertinent question is why SNAP enrollment stayed elevated after the emergency ended. Historically, the program expanded during recessions and contracted during growth, but recent policy choices altered that pattern. States used labor‑market waivers intended for areas with weak job markets and suspended verification steps such as interviews and regular eligibility redeterminations. Because reversing those measures offered little political incentive, many remained in place long after the pandemic. While states cover SNAP’s administrative costs, the federal government pays virtually all benefit expenses—over 90 percent of the tab. Allowing rolls to swell let lawmakers appear generous while shifting the financial burden to national taxpayers. The American Enterprise Institute calculated that, by fiscal year 2023, more than eight in ten able‑bodied adults receiving SNAP were not meeting the program’s work requirements. In that same year, one in ten SNAP dollars—about $10.7 billion—went to households that received more than they were entitled to, mainly because states skipped proper eligibility checks. Reducing paperwork saved states money, but the resulting errors were largely absorbed by federal taxpayers. When the economy recovered and unemployment returned to 2019 levels, SNAP did not retreat accordingly; last summer there were six million more participants than before the pandemic. Congress responded with legislation aimed at correcting SNAP’s incentive mismatches and pulling spending and enrollment back toward pre‑pandemic levels. The law broadened the pool of able‑bodied adults subject to work requirements, limited states’ ability to waive those rules except in areas with genuinely high unemployment, and required states with high improper‑payment rates to cover the cost of benefits they issue. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman described the changes as intended to “preserve the integrity and sustainability” of SNAP and to restore its purpose as a “bridge to independence, not a semipermanent lifestyle.” Three decades earlier, Congress pursued a similar goal, describing aid as a “way station, not a mode of life,” a phrase attributed to Brookings scholar Isabel Sawhill. The 1996 overhaul turned the main cash‑assistance program into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, adding work rules and time limits. In the ensuing years, child poverty fell sharply and employment among single mothers rose, even as the caseload dropped from five million families in 1994 to 2.2 million in 2000. Then‑Sen. Joe Biden summed up the sentiment: “The civilization of payment indispensable be replaced with the civilization of work.” Those ideas still resonate with the public. A recent Manhattan Institute survey shows voters continue to believe benefits should be temporary, aimed chiefly at those who cannot support themselves, and paired with an expectation that able‑bodied adults work in exchange for assistance. If the government is going to provide aid, Americans agree it should target the truly needy—the disabled, the elderly, and low‑income families with young children—rather than subsidize dependency among adults who are capable of working. The success of SNAP reforms, and of any welfare program, should be judged by how many people move from assistance to self‑sufficiency, not by how many remain on the rolls. Romina Boccia is director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute. Tyler Turman is a research associate in budget and entitlement policy at C