Federal officials say no eligible families are being removed from SNAP, but researchers and advocates report rising benefit losses that could affect hundreds of thousands of Californians, including families with children.
The head of the US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday falsely told senators that “no one was kicked off” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, claiming that the millions of people—including many children—who have lost federal nutrition assistance in recent months were no longer eligible for aid or decided not to apply for it.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins declared that “no one in Washington or in America wants to see a family go hungry,” but insisted that anyone who is no longer receiving SNAP benefits has “chosen not to reapply or they’re an able-bodied adult that can either work for 20 hours a week or volunteer.”
Rollins’ testimony conflicts with a growing number of anecdotal reports and expert analyzes showing that families across the United States are losing SNAP benefits at the fastest rate in decades. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates that at least 700,000 children have lost SNAP since President Donald Trump signed into law a Republican budget package last summer, enacting the largest-ever cuts to the federal nutrition program.
For children specifically, there is not yet a publicly reported statewide California figure showing exactly how many children have already lost SNAP benefits. Nationally, however, researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that in 12 states with available data, more than 700,000 children stopped receiving SNAP benefits after the 2025 federal law changes.
In California:
About 5.47 million people received CalFresh/SNAP benefits each month in fiscal year 2025.
Households with children are more likely to participate in the program than households without children.
The state has warned that hundreds of thousands of recipients could be affected by new eligibility and work-rule requirements.
California projects that more than 665,000 residents could lose CalFresh benefits under the new federal rules, but a statewide count of children who have lost benefits has not yet been publicly reported.
