The number of Americans receiving food assistance through the federal government fell sharply over the past year, according to new participation data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program dropped by more than five and a half million people between May 2025 and May 2026, one of the steepest year-over-year declines in the program’s recent history. For households that rely on SNAP to stretch a grocery budget, the shift reflects a program that is shrinking fast, even as prices at the register remain a daily strain.
SNAP Rolls Fell to 36.6 Million by May 2026
The Food and Nutrition Administration’s latest monthly participation report, dated August 14, 2026, puts national SNAP enrollment at 36,562,128 people in May 2026. A year earlier, in May 2025, the program served 42,252,705 people. Subtracting one figure from the other shows a loss of 5,690,577 people, a 13.5 percent drop over twelve months.
The household count moved in the same direction. SNAP paid benefits to 19,897,321 households in May 2026, down from 22,493,654 households in May 2025, a decline of roughly 2.6 million enrolled households in a single year. Total benefits issued nationwide fell from just under $7.87 billion in May 2025 to $6,854,754,033 in May 2026, tracking the smaller caseload.
Free retirement updates: Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. Our free Retirement Shield newsletter breaks down what changed and what to do. Get it free in your inbox.
The Per-Person Benefit Held Nearly Steady
The average benefit per person tells a different story than the headline caseload number. In May 2026, the typical SNAP recipient received $187.48 a month, slightly higher than the $186.17 average recorded in May 2025. The average household benefit moved from $349.71 in May 2025 to $344.51 in May 2026, a modest decline of about five dollars a month.
Read together, the two trends point to a program that is shedding participants faster than it is trimming what remains on each grocery budget. Fewer households are drawing SNAP, but the ones still enrolled are receiving benefits close to where they stood a year ago.
A Four-Year Low, Down From the Pandemic-Era Peak
The current caseload sits well below the recent high-water mark. SNAP participation peaked at 43,257,215 people in October 2024, the start of fiscal year 2025. From that point, enrollment trended lower across nineteen months, with only brief upticks along the way, reaching 36,562,128 people by May 2026, a drop of just under 6.7 million people from the October 2024 high.
The decline within fiscal year 2026 has been remarkably consistent from month to month. Participation opened the fiscal year at 41,096,660 people in October 2025, then fell every month after that: 39,999,890 in November, 39,207,898 in December, 38,552,133 in January 2026, 37,947,123 in February, 37,531,152 in March and 37,078,596 in April, before reaching 36,562,128 in May. Unlike fiscal year 2025, when the caseload occasionally ticked up from one month to the next, the fiscal year 2026 slide has not reversed in a single month reported so far.
Three Straight Fiscal Years of Decline
The monthly figures extend a longer slide visible in USDA’s own annual summary. Average enrollment across all of fiscal year 2023 was 48,210,002 people. It fell to 41,859,377 in fiscal year 2024, then edged back up slightly to 42,386,282 in fiscal year 2025. Fiscal year 2026, which began in October 2025 and runs through September 2026, is averaging 38,496,948 people across the eight months reported so far, already below every full prior fiscal year in the same table.
Total SNAP benefit costs have followed a similar arc. The program paid out $120,453,142,875 in fiscal year 2023, dropping to $93,836,369,579 in fiscal year 2024 and $95,767,224,882 in fiscal year 2025. Through the first eight months of fiscal year 2026, benefit costs total $58,314,116,950, a partial-year figure USDA has not annualized since the fiscal year will not close until September.
The Income Limits That Determine Who Qualifies
Whether a household still qualifies for SNAP depends on income limits that USDA updates annually and republished on its eligibility page, last updated August 28, 2026. For the period running through September 2026, a single-person household must have gross monthly income at or below $1,696 and net monthly income at or below $1,305 to qualify. A four-person household’s gross income limit is $3,483 a month, with a net income limit of $2,680.
The maximum monthly benefit a household can receive also depends on its size: $298 for one person and $994 for a household of four, before the standard formula subtracts 30 percent of net income from that maximum. Those thresholds, not the participation trend alone, determine whether the shrinking caseload reflects fewer households that qualify or fewer eligible households that apply.
The Data Carries USDA’s Own Preliminary Label
USDA flags the fiscal year 2026 figures as preliminary. The same report that lists the May 2026 numbers states plainly that FY2026 data are preliminary and all data are subject to revision, a caveat the agency attaches to every month of the current fiscal year until final counts are certified. Revisions to preliminary SNAP data are typically small, but the agency’s own footnote means the exact size of the year-over-year drop could shift slightly in later releases.
For now, the report stands as the most current official account of enrollment in the country’s largest food assistance program, and it shows a caseload that has fallen every month of fiscal year 2026 so far alongside a nearly flat individual benefit.
SNAP has a separate, less restrictive eligibility test for households where a member is 60 or older, and the caseload swings described above show how many people move on and off the rolls each year. It is one of several benefit programs older households routinely qualify for and never get around to filing, alongside Medicare Savings Programs, Extra Help for prescription drug costs, and home energy assistance. The Benefits Checklist gathers the 2026 income limits for SNAP at 60+ and nine other programs in one place, with a state-by-state office directory for filing.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
