When Angelica Garcia went to renew her food stamp benefits this past spring, she figured the process would be familiar. The Tucson single mother of three filled out her application, made repeated phone calls to Arizona’s Department of Economic Security — often sitting on hold until the line disconnected — and spent hours waiting at an understaffed DES office to speak with a caseworker.
By the time she was finally approved again in June, two months had passed without benefits. During that stretch, her family survived on donations from food pantries and low-cost basics like beans, rice, and tortillas.
“There’s hoops to jump through — always,” said Garcia, who has relied on food stamps in Arizona for three years. But now, she says, the government is “adding more hoops.”
Since President Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation took effect last July, more than 4.7 million people across the United States have lost access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — commonly called food stamps — according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures through March. That represents roughly 11% of all program participants.
No state has felt the impact more sharply than Arizona. SNAP enrollment there has dropped by approximately half, the largest decline anywhere in the country. According to DES data through the end of May, that translates to lost benefits for more than 457,000 Arizonans, including close to 196,000 children.
The new law cuts SNAP funding by $187 billion — about 17% — over the next decade. It does so in part by broadening work requirements and blocking certain immigrants from receiving benefits. States that fail to meet specific performance benchmarks starting in October of next year will face financial penalties, and states will also be required to shoulder a larger share of administrative costs.
SNAP experts and DES spokesperson Brett Bezio pointed to Arizona’s decision to implement the federal changes faster than most other states as a key reason enrollment has dropped so dramatically there.
“Arizona has no choice but to meet these requirements,” said Liliana Soto, press secretary for Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, in an emailed statement. “If we don’t comply, we will be fined hundreds of millions of dollars and more vulnerable Arizonans will lose their food assistance.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended the changes, saying the SNAP overhaul “prioritizes American citizens, and implements reasonable cost-sharing measures with states to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse,” though she provided no specific examples. The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration said the drop in enrollment is partly due to the expanded work requirements.
Food Banks Overwhelmed
The cuts have sent a record number of people to food banks in Arizona, according to the Arizona Food Bank Network, a statewide organization that coordinates with local pantries. About 843,000 Arizonans visited a food pantry in April — an 8% jump from the 779,000 who did so in April 2025 — and that number actually exceeded the total number of people receiving SNAP benefits. Food bank visits dipped slightly to around 790,000 in May.
Still, food pantries are struggling to close “a massive gap,” according to Terri Shoemaker, executive vice president of the Arizona Food Bank Network. DES and the USDA did not respond to questions about the surge in food bank usage.
Myriam Flores, a Phoenix mother of seven, said in a May interview that she lost $1,100 per month in SNAP benefits in January after being unable to complete her renewal. Like Garcia, she described spending hours on hold with DES only for calls to drop before she could speak with anyone. At the time of her interview, she said she was visiting the St. Vincent de Paul pantry in Phoenix nearly every day to feed her children.
“There are nights of crying, nights of not sleeping, when I lose sleep at 2 a.m. doing the math, deciding what to pay for and what to put off,” she said. Reuters was unable to confirm whether Flores has since resumed efforts to obtain benefits or whether she currently qualifies.
‘Falling Through the Cracks’
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the longer wait times stem partly from tougher vetting procedures Arizona’s agency put in place to meet the new performance standards and sidestep financial penalties.
“They can’t get through on the overloaded phone line, or they’re being asked for more and more paperwork that they can’t provide, or they do provide it but the state doesn’t have capacity to process it,” she said.
Those performance standards are tied to Arizona’s SNAP error rate — a measurement of benefit overpayments and underpayments. Arizona’s 2024 error rate was 8.84%, below the national average of 10.9%, but above the 6% threshold that would require states to cover up to 15% of SNAP benefit costs under the new law. Historically, the federal government has paid the full cost of benefits. That potential liability could cost Arizona roughly $201.5 million next year, according to the DES 2027 budget request.
To head off those penalties, DES has tightened its application requirements, now asking for documentation such as pay stubs or lease agreements, Bezio said.
Cindy Bernardo, a program manager at the St. Vincent de Paul pantry, said many of the organization’s clients have experienced delays or lost benefits entirely as Arizona rolls out the federal changes. “So many of them have lost their benefits,” she said. “And they have reapplied, and most of them can’t even get an answer to their questions.”
The law also extended work requirements to areas that previously had exemptions due to high unemployment or a shortage of available jobs. Joseph Palomino, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, noted that 14 of Arizona’s 15 counties are now subject to work requirements, compared to just one last year. Combined with the new documentation demands, he said people are “falling through the cracks.”
DES said it is working to address the problem by hiring additional staff and contracting with a third-party call center to reduce wait times.
Declines Spreading Across the Country
Arizona is not alone. USDA data show SNAP enrollment has also dropped significantly in other states: 17.4% in Louisiana, 13.7% in Virginia, and 11.6% in Wyoming.
The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration said states are responsible for correctly carrying out the federal changes and that it has issued guidance to help them comply. The Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment. Wyoming’s Department of Family Services acknowledged that “a large portion” of its decline was tied to the federal law changes.
In Virginia, enrollment fell 12% in the year ending in March, according to the state’s Department of Social Services. Spokesperson Michael Pulley put it plainly: “The primary impact of this law on the Commonwealth is that now more families are going hungry when nobody should have to go hungry.”
