SNAP enrollment dropped by about 3% in New Hampshire from June 2025 to June 2026, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
SNAP, which stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and is commonly referred to as food stamps, provides money for people with food insecurity to spend on groceries.
Last summer’s federal reconciliation bill, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, significantly restricted the program, barring most legal immigrants from accessing benefits, implementing more stringent work requirements and making states take on an increased share of the costs in future years.
An "environment of confusion"
Direct providers are saying they are seeing increased demand as these changes go into effect.
“If you just look at June, for example, we saw 40% increase in demand versus last year at this time,” said Anne Hayes, who leads the Gather food pantry in Portsmouth. Hayes said the loss of benefits comes as many families are coping with a stubbornly high cost of living.
Without benefits, people are turning to their local food pantries, which experts say have been struggling to keep up with the growing need. Laura Milliken, who leads New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, said the charitable food system is already “overburdened.”
“There's just no way that the charitable food system is going to be able to pick up the slack,” she said. The charitable food system offers recipients fewer choices than SNAP and is less reliable since it depends on donations to function, Milliken said.
Compared to the rest of the country and New England, the enrollment decrease in New Hampshire is low, according to a report from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nationally, there was an 11% decrease in enrollment over the past year. In Vermont and Maine, that figure was around 7% in each. In Massachusetts, it fell by more than 15%.
Milliken said it is hard to know why New Hampshire saw less drop-off than its neighbors but said the state consistently has one of the lowest program participation rates in the country.
She said implementing the new changes has been strenuous for both the state and benefit recipients and created “an environment of confusion.” Plus, the federal shutdown in Nov. paused benefits for the first time in SNAP’s history, which Milliken said led to a feeling of uncertainty regarding the program’s future.
New requirements, more paperwork
Adults used to be subjected to work requirements until they were 54, but the new law raises that age to 64. Parents with children under the age of 18 used to be exempt from these requirements, but now that exemption only is in place until the child turns 14.
Milliken said proving to administrators that someone meets the work requirements can “itself become a full time job,” especially for people who work part-time, in the gig economy, multiple jobs or in seasonal work.
“The work requirements add complexity, but they don't really help people connect to work or even encourage people to connect to work because people are already working if they can,” she said. “What it does do is make it so that people who are working get cut off from the program because they can't show that they're working because their income is not steady.”
Milliken said SNAP is a “transitional program” designed for people at particularly hard junctures and most people are only on it for 18 months or less.
Higher demand on states
Prior to the 2025 bill, SNAP benefits were fully federally funded and administered by the states, with administrative costs shared equally between state and federal governments.
Starting in October of this year, the state will have to fund 75% of administration costs, which will be around $4.4 million in New Hampshire this year. In coming years, this figure will be even higher, around $6 million dollars, because the state’s fiscal year begins in July, and the federal government fiscal year begins in October.
A penalty will be put in place for errors like overpaying or underpaying recipients. If a state has an error rate greater than 6%, they will have to fund a portion of benefits.
According to USDA data from 2025, the average error rate across the country was nearly 11%, meaning most states will likely have to pay some portion of its benefits. New Hampshire’s error rate was 9% last year.
Milliken said the future looks challenging for many people.
“We know that people are losing Snap benefits, and we know that very soon people are going to lose Medicaid benefits,” she said.
