When Angelica Garcia tried to resume her meals stamps this spring, she stated she thought she knew the drill. The one mom of three in Tucson stuffed out the appliance. She repeatedly referred to as Arizona’s Division of Financial Safety, the state company administering the federal assist, typically staying on maintain till the road dropped. She visited a thinly staffed DES workplace and waited hours for a caseworker.
By the point Garcia was reapproved in June, she’d missed two months of advantages whereas her household received by on food-pantry donations and low-cost staples like beans, rice and tortillas.
“There’s hoops to leap by — at all times,” stated Garcia, who has used meals stamps within the state for 3 years. However now the federal government is “including extra hoops.”
Greater than 4.7 million individuals nationwide have misplaced their Supplemental Diet Help Program advantages, also called meals stamps, since President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending regulation took impact final July, in keeping with information by March from the US Division of Agriculture — about 11% of members.
Nowhere have the modifications to America’s second-largest social safety-net program taken maintain as quickly as in Arizona, the place the variety of SNAP recipients has fallen by about half, the steepest drop within the nation.
That ​means misplaced advantages for greater than 457,000 Arizonans, together with almost 196,000 youngsters, in keeping with DES information as of the top of Might.
The regulation reduces SNAP funding by $187 billion, or about 17%, over the following 10 years, partly by increasing work necessities and barring some immigrants from receiving advantages.
It additionally imposes penalties on states that fail to satisfy sure efficiency requirements starting in October subsequent yr. And it shifts extra administrative prices onto states.
Among the many causes enrollment has fallen so steeply in Arizona is that the state has moved to implement the federal modifications extra rapidly than different states, in keeping with two SNAP consultants and the DES spokesperson, Brett Bezio.
“Arizona has no alternative however to satisfy these necessities,” Liliana Soto, press secretary for Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, stated in an e-mail. “If we do not comply, we will likely be fined tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and extra weak Arizonans will lose their meals help.”
White Home spokesperson Anna Kelly stated the SNAP overhaul “prioritizes Americans, and implements cheap cost-sharing measures with states to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse,” with out providing examples.
The USDA’s Meals and Diet Administration, which administers SNAP, attributed the decline in enrollment partly to the work requirement modifications.
RECORD FOOD-PANTRY DEMAND
The SNAP cuts have pushed a report variety of individuals to meals banks in Arizona, in keeping with the Arizona Meals Financial institution Community, a statewide group that works with native pantries.
About 843,000 Arizonans sought assist from a meals pantry in April, about an 8% enhance over 779,000 in April 2025 — and surpassing the variety of individuals receiving SNAP, in keeping with AFBN information. Meals financial institution customers fell in Might to about 790,000, the information exhibits.
Even so, meals pantries are scrambling to fill “a large hole,” stated Terri Shoemaker, government vice chairman of the AFBN.
DES and the USDA didn’t touch upon the rise in food-bank use.
Myriam Flores, a mom of seven in Phoenix, stated in a Might interview that she was unable to resume her entry to SNAP and misplaced $1,100 a month in advantages in January.
She stated she spent hours on maintain with Arizona’s DES, just for calls to drop.
On the time of her interview, she stated she visits the St. Vincent de Paul pantry in Phoenix almost day-after-day so she will feed her youngsters.
“There are nights of crying, nights of not sleeping, after I lose sleep at 2 am doing the maths, deciding what to pay for and what to place off,” she stated.
Reuters couldn’t decide whether or not Flores has resumed her efforts to get advantages or whether or not she’s at the moment eligible.
‘FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS’
Katie Bergh, a senior coverage analyst on the Heart on Price range and Coverage Priorities, stated that the longer wait instances are partly the results of stricter processes for vetting candidates, launched by Arizona’s state company to satisfy the brand new efficiency requirements and keep away from monetary penalties.
“They can not get by on the overloaded telephone line, or they’re being requested for increasingly paperwork that they can not present, or they do present it however the state does not have the capability to course of it,” she stated.
These requirements grew out of the state’s SNAP error charge — a measure of overpayments and underpayments of meals stamp advantages.
Arizona’s error charge in 2024 was 8.84%, under the nationwide common of 10.9%, however nonetheless above the 6% threshold that — beneath the brand new regulation — would require states to cowl as much as 15% of the price of SNAP advantages. Traditionally, the federal authorities has paid the complete value of advantages.
That might value Arizona about $201.5 million subsequent yr, in keeping with the DES 2027 funds request.
To keep away from the specter of “vital monetary penalties,” DES has tightened its utility course of by requiring documentation like pay stubs or leases, Bezio stated.
Cindy Bernardo, a program supervisor on the St. Vincent de Paul pantry, ​stated most of the group’s shoppers have confronted delays or misplaced their SNAP advantages because the state enacts the federal modifications.
“So lots of them have misplaced their advantages,” she stated. “They usually have reapplied, and most of them cannot even get a solution to their questions.”
The federal regulation additionally expanded work necessities to areas that beforehand had waivers due to excessive unemployment or inadequate jobs.
Fourteen of Arizona’s 15 counties are actually topic to work necessities, in comparison with only one final yr, stated Joseph Palomino, director of the Arizona Heart for Financial Progress.
These modifications, in addition to the brand new calls for for documentation, are making it tougher for individuals to get well timed entry to advantages, he stated, and so they’re “falling by the cracks.”
Bezio stated the company is hiring extra employees and contracting with a third-party name heart to enhance wait instances.
SNAP CUTS ROLL OUT NATIONWIDE
Different states are recording steep drops in SNAP enrollment: 17.4% in Louisiana, 11.6% in Wyoming and 13.7% in Virginia, USDA information present.
The USDA’s FNA stated states are chargeable for precisely implementing the federal modifications, and that it has issued steerage to assist them meet new necessities.
The Louisiana Division of Well being didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The Wyoming Division of Household Providers stated “a big portion” of the state’s decline was because of the federal modifications.
In Virginia, SNAP enrollment fell 12% within the yr ending in March, in keeping with the ​Division of Social Providers.
“The first influence of this regulation on the Commonwealth is that now extra households are going hungry when no person ought to should go hungry,” stated spokesperson Michael Pulley.
