In the year after President Trump signed his budget bill in July 2025, Louisiana's food assistance rolls shrank by about 170,000 people. That's 21% of everyone in the state who was on SNAP, the program most people still call food stamps. It's one of the steepest drops in the country.

The numbers come from federal data analyzed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and reported October 8, 2026, by Verite News and the Louisiana Illuminator. Nationally, about 5 million fewer people — 13% — were on SNAP in June 2026 than when the law passed.

"We haven't seen a decline of this magnitude in about three decades," said Joseph Llobrera, who leads food assistance research at the center.

Meanwhile, food prices went up nearly 3% over the past year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Who voted for it

Louisiana has four Republicans in the U.S. House. Every one of them voted for Trump's budget bill when it first passed the House in May 2025, and again when it passed for good on July 3, 2025:

• Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader — yes, twice.
• Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House — yes, twice.
• Clay Higgins — yes, twice.
• Julia Letlow, now running for U.S. Senate — yes, twice.

Louisiana's two Democrats in the House voted no both times.

This is the same delegation, and the same law, behind the state's Medicaid problem. We reported last month that the state now says as many as 58,000 Louisianans may have to take extra steps to keep their coverage under the new Medicaid work rules these four voted for.

How the law takes food away

The budget bill did three things to SNAP that are showing up in Louisiana now:

• More work rules. It expanded SNAP's work requirements and made it harder for states to waive them.
• Fewer people eligible. It cut off many immigrants who are here legally.
• The bill goes to the states. Starting October 1, 2026, states have to pay 75% of the cost of running SNAP, up from half. And starting in October 2027, states with high error rates have to pay for part of the food benefits themselves — which Washington used to cover in full.

Louisiana's error rate went up, from 6.62% to 8.14%. The Food Research & Action Center estimates the state could be on the hook for up to $199 million in benefit costs.

To push its error rate down, Louisiana — like other states — is making applicants send in more paperwork, more often. Miss a deadline and you're cut off.

State data shows 75% of the Louisianans who lost SNAP from July 2025 to June 2026 lost it for "procedural reasons" — a missed form, a missed interview, a renewal that didn't go through. Not because they stopped being eligible.

"Families are still hungry, and they're actually eligible for the program," said Tia Fields, an analyst at the nonpartisan Invest in Louisiana. "This is a tax bill that we really cannot afford."

What it looks like

Aaranika Macon of LaPlace got SNAP for more than three years, including after she started nursing school. When she reapplied in February, she waited until April for benefits — even though federal law says eligible families must get benefits within 30 days. When they came, only her 11-year-old son qualified. The roughly $500 a month that fed both of them became $298.

At one point this summer, she said, she had to stretch a $5 SNAP balance over six days.

"I'm in the same position as before the job. So, why is it cut?" she said.

Second Harvest Food Bank in south Louisiana says more people are coming to food pantries, for longer, and more often. During last year's government shutdown, when federal SNAP payments stopped, "Every politician was like, 'Oh, just go to your food bank,'" said the food bank's Lindsay Hendrix. "And all of us working in food banks just around the country were like, 'We will run out of food.'"

It's happening everywhere

Louisiana isn't alone, and neither are its Republicans. In Pennsylvania, 220,000 fewer people are on food stamps than a year earlier, and nine Pennsylvania Republicans voted for the law behind nearly half of it. We laid out how Republicans voted to dump billions in food stamp costs on states before the cuts began.

Adding it up

Louisiana's SNAP enrollment fell by about 170,000 people — 21% — in the year after Trump's budget bill became law, and three-quarters of the people who lost SNAP in that year lost it for paperwork reasons rather than because they stopped qualifying. Steve Scalise, Mike Johnson, Clay Higgins and Julia Letlow all voted for that law in May 2025 and again in July 2025, and it could leave Louisiana paying up to $199 million in benefit costs Washington used to cover.

Source

• Food aid enrollment in Louisiana nosedives after SNAP rule changes — Verite News, via the Louisiana Illuminator