Since the passage of President Trump’s signature legislation, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July last year, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has fallen by almost 23,000 in Maine, a decline of 13%. This includes almost 7,000 children who are no longer receiving food assistance.
The changes to SNAP eligibility in the bill were sold as tackling fraud and abuse and pushing people into employment through the expansion of work-reporting requirements. Yet since the bill’s passage, the number of Mainers working has remained unchanged, even as tens of thousands have lost SNAP. Meanwhile, true fraud in SNAP remains rare, and multiple pieces of academic research show work reporting requirements burden people with unnecessary paperwork that doesn’t increase work but does cause people to lose assistance.
The map below shows how many Mainers have lost food assistance by town, county, and legislative and congressional districts. The data shows losses are concentrated in the most rural parts of the state, where more people rely on SNAP for food assistance and where consistent year-round work is hardest to find.
For more information on the changes to SNAP, see MECEP’s earlier analysis.