About 160,000 fewer Massachusetts residents, including almost 60,000 children, receive benefits from a federal food assistance program since the Trump administration enacted new rules and restrictions last fall.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, is the cornerstone of the federal food assistance system. Once known as food stamps, it helped feed more than 37 million people nationwide in April, the most recent month of available federal data.
Six months earlier, the program provided grocery assistance to more than 41 million people.
New rules established by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump, require more people to work sufficient hours and complete additional paperwork to receive SNAP benefits.
The law also removed some legal residents of the U.S. ā such as non-citizen victims of human trafficking ā from the program.
As families lose access to SNAP, they often turn to their local food pantries, straining an emergency food system already pressed to its limits.
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The changes, enacted in Massachusetts in November, did little to increase employment among SNAP recipients, advocates say. In Massachusetts, about three in four working-age SNAP recipients already had a job, according to a 2025 University of Massachusetts Amherst study.
Instead, the added paperwork made it more burdensome to apply for or renew SNAP benefits, leading more recipients to drop the program or give up on their applications, said Erin McAleer, the president of Project Bread, an anti-hunger organization based in Boston.
Since October, the number of Massachusetts residents receiving SNAP has declined by 15% ā equivalent to roughly 160,000 residents no longer receiving benefits.
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Nationally, SNAP participation fell 13.5% from May 2025 to May 2026, according to the most recently available federal data. Nine states saw more significant declines than Massachusetts, led by Arizona, where SNAP participation was cut in half.
āRepublicans said, āWeāre not cutting people off,āā McAleer said. āBut what they were doing was making it such a bureaucratic nightmare to access that people were cut off.ā
The added paperwork is made more difficult by strained staffing at the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), the state agency that manages SNAP in Massachusetts, according to McAleer and other anti-hunger leaders.
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In recent months, about half of callers to the DTA assistance line have been unable to connect with a representative. On average, the department is taking three weeks to process a new SNAP application, according to a department report released last month.
A stretched staff can make more mistakes, which could have hefty financial consequences for the state as they pile up.
The departmentās error rate on SNAP payments ā not a measure of fraud, but rather of benefits being miscalculated ā was 12.5% last fiscal year. The national error rate is 10.6%. Under the provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill, states will pay steep financial penalties if their SNAP error rate remains over 6%.
If Massachusetts cannot bring its SNAP error rate under control, it could be on the hook for as much as $392 million in SNAP benefits that the federal government would otherwise cover, according to an August report from the Food Research & Action Center.
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At the urging of the Anti-Hunger Task Force convened by Gov. Maura Healey, DTA hired 76 additional staff earlier this year to help expedite paperwork, recertify benefits and connect with DTA clients.
Among other steps to reduce the error rate, DTA has also upgraded its technology and phone lines, added staff training and assigned a team of experienced caseworkers to ensure payment accuracy, according to the task force.
The Family Pantry of Cape Cod, in Harwich, is the region’s largest food pantry, Feb. 19, 2026.(Will Katcher/MassLive)
The stateās SNAP caseload increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to rise afterward as inflation pushed grocery and other expenses higher. SNAP participation peaked at 1.12 million Massachusetts residents in summer 2024 and declined through 2025 as loosened COVID-era eligibility rules expired.
But the decline in SNAP participation since November has been far steeper.
The new SNAP eligibility rules expanded work requirements to cover more middle-aged people and more parents and lifted exemptions for veterans, homeless people and former foster children.
An April report from Healeyās Anti-Hunger Task Force estimated that about 100,000 Massachusetts residents would be subject to the stricter requirements within a year.
The new rules also withdrew SNAP eligibility from some legal residents who are not citizens, including refugees, asylees and survivors of domestic violence and sex trafficking. Those restrictions affected nearly 10,000 Massachusetts residents, the task force report found.
The changes did not affect undocumented immigrants, who have never qualified for SNAP.
About 45,000 households could also see their benefits reduced by next year, the report found.
SNAP supplements grocery spending, providing the average Massachusetts recipient $195 per month ā about $6.50 per day ā according to federal data. Often, the funds run out before the month is up. As inflation drove grocery prices higher in recent years, more and more families have turned to local food pantries to fill the gap.
In November, the Trump administration temporarily suspended SNAP benefits during a government shutdown, an unprecedented move in the programās decades-long history. At food pantries in Massachusetts, lines stretched around the block and down the street. Some locations were forced, for the first time, to turn families away.
āThe scale of this is bigger than the food pantries and food banks can meet,ā McAleer said. āTheyāre doing incredible work, but theyāre meant to be the stopgap used in emergencies and intermittently.ā
At The Open Door, a Gloucester food pantry and social services organization, requests for food assistance increased 36% last year, after rising 30% in each of the two preceding years. Demand is up 12% this year to date. Even if it has leveled, the pantry is still dramatically busier than it was three years ago, Julie LaFontaine, its CEO, said.
āThree-quarters of the people we serve are on SNAP, and they still need some help to make it all work,ā she said. āFor many people, we are the food system now. And Iām not sure that was what was ever intended.ā
