Dear friend,
SNAP Is Shrinking. Hunger Isn't.
SNAP is the country's largest food assistance program, and one of the few that lets people choose food based on their own households, health needs, cultures, and routines. It works from a simple premise: people know what they and their families need, and getting enough to eat shouldn't depend on someone else's willingness to provide it.
September is Hunger Action Month, a time to pay attention not only to hunger, but to what drives it and what we can do to address it together. This year, that conversation feels especially urgent. As access to SNAP contracts nationally, the need for food is moving in the opposite direction in Oregon.
Over the past year, federal policy changes have made SNAP harder to access and easier to lose. We're starting to see what that looks like nationally, across Oregon, and here in Portland.
This edition of Food for Thought looks at what's changed, who seems to be affected most, and why community food programs were never meant to carry this much weight on their own.
Roughly Five Million People Have Lost SNAP
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Explore the SNAP Tracker
Between July 2025 and May 2026, SNAP participation dropped by an estimated 5 million people nationwide, about a 12 percent decline and the lowest enrollment level in 17 years.
That drop doesn't reflect less need. Unemployment has stayed fairly steady, grocery costs keep climbing, and food insecurity remains widespread. What seems to be driving the decline is a mix of new eligibility restrictions, expanded work-reporting requirements, immigration-related exclusions, and paperwork that's easy to fall behind on or hard to complete.
Oregon's numbers follow the same trend. In April 2026, the Oregon Department of Human Services reported that 757,700 Oregonians, about one in six residents, were receiving SNAP. The state had previously estimated that more than 313,000 people could be affected by the federal changes. By spring, Oregon was already seeing the effects: 13,898 SNAP recipients lost benefits in March after failing to meet the new work requirements or qualify for an exemption.
Those barriers don't land evenly. Neighbors piecing together inconsistent work hours, managing a disability, navigating immigration status, caregiving, or facing housing instability are the ones losing access because of rigid reporting and documentation rules. Not because they need less, but because the process assumes a kind of stability many households don't have.
Children Are Losing Food Assistance, Too
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Read the analysis
New national estimates suggest that more than 1.5 million children have lost access to SNAP since July 2025.
Children weren't named as the target of these restrictions, but they're living with the results. When a parent, caregiver, or another household member loses eligibility, there's less money for groceries for everyone in the home.
The ripple effects can reach further than the kitchen table. SNAP enrollment often connects families to other forms of support, including school meals and WIC. So when a household loses SNAP over paperwork or a missed report, they can lose more than one resource at the same time, sometimes without fully realizing it's happened.
What the Changes Mean in Multnomah County
Axios Portland | Oregon Department of Human Services | Read the local report
Federal changes have expanded SNAP work-reporting requirements to more adults, including older adults and some parents and caregivers of teenagers. Exemptions that used to cover veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young adults who've aged out of foster care have also been removed. People subject to the new rules generally need to document at least 80 hours of work or another qualifying activity each month, a structure that leaves little room for unpredictable schedules, caregiving responsibilities, disability, transportation gaps, or the everyday logistics of getting by on very little.
The research on this is consistent: SNAP work requirements tend to reduce participation without producing much movement in employment or earnings. Mostly, they create more chances for people to fall out of a program they still qualify for.
In Portland, the need is consistently climbing. More than 122,000 people in Multnomah County experienced food insecurity in 2024, the most recent year with county-level data. That's 15.3 percent of the county, up from 10.1 percent in 2021. Visits to food assistance sites across Oregon and Southwest Washington have climbed 51 percent over two years.
Put together, these numbers point to a widening gap between what food costs and what's left over after housing, transportation, utilities, and health care. They show what tends to happen when public benefits contract while the cost of living keeps moving the other way.
What This Means for Lift UP and Our Community
When SNAP is cut, the expectation often shifts quietly to food banks, pantries, mutual aid networks, and community organizations picking up the difference. But these systems weren't built or funded to stand in for a federal program at this scale, and asking them to do so risks treating a public commitment to food access as something local communities can simply absorb.
SNAP lets people shop where and when it works for them, supporting local grocery stores while keeping the choice of what foods fit their own households, health needs, cultures, and routines. Community food programs can offer real relationships, additional access, and care, but they work differently, and they were never meant to replace the reach or purchasing power of a national benefit.
At Lift UP, we'll keep responding to what our community is experiencing. Through Preston's Pantry, Delivered Groceries, Pop-Ups, Supper Club, Verdier Farm, and our work with CAFE (the Coalition to Advance Food Equity), we're building stronger local food systems for sourcing, sharing, and distributing food.
That work continues, but responding to immediate need and being honest about where that need comes from can both be true at once. Rising pantry visits aren't a sign that community food systems are successfully filling the gap SNAP left. They're a sign that people are being asked to get by with less.
Final Bite: Hunger Is Not a Personal Failure
Food insecurity tends to be discussed as though it starts with an individual household. More often, it's shaped by systems -- wages, housing costs, health care access, immigration policy, disability, displacement, and decisions made somewhere far from any one kitchen about who deserves public support and who doesn't.
The current SNAP decline isn't just a shift in enrollment numbers. For millions of people, it's a loss of purchasing power, choice, and stability, even as the need for food hasn't changed.
Staying informed is one way to push back on narratives that place the blame on individuals for conditions shaped by policy. It's also a way to hold the difference between responding to hunger and addressing what causes it.
We hope you'll read further, share these resources, and stay engaged as these changes continue to reach our community.
Go Deeper
A few starting points if you want to sit with this topic longer than a newsletter allows.
Watch
PBS NewsHour, Millions lose SNAP benefits as One Big Beautiful Bill's stricter requirements kick in (June 2026) — a short segment with Harvard's Sara Bleich on what the new work requirements mean in practice.
Listen
NPR, What to know about the new changes to SNAP benefits (March 2026) — a clear, short explainer with CBPP's Ty Jones Cox.
Track the Data
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' SNAP Tracker — updated regularly as enrollment changes roll out.
Oregon Food Bank's State of Hunger in Oregon | Hunger Facts — a concise collection of current Oregon food insecurity and food assistance figures.
Urban Institute, Food Insecurity Remained High in 2025, As Safety Net Cuts Loom (March 2026) — national baseline data on food insecurity right before the deepest cuts take hold.
Stay Engaged
Community food programs can respond to what people need today, but lasting food security also depends on the policies that shape whether people can afford food in the first place.
If you want to stay connected to the policy side of this work, Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon shares advocacy opportunities, legislative updates, and ways to take action on food security across the state.
You don't have to be an advocate every day to stay informed. Sometimes it starts with knowing what's changing, understanding who is affected, and having a way to speak up when it matters.
With gratitude,
Stephanie Barr, Executive Director
P.S. Community support helps Lift UP meet growing need while protecting the choice and dignity at the heart of our work, without losing sight of the essential role SNAP plays in helping families afford food.
By becoming a Root Partner with a gift of $35/month, you help sustain year-round access to fresh produce, dairy, eggs, and other nourishing foods people can choose for themselves.
Together, we can strengthen local food access while continuing to push for a food system where SNAP does the job it's meant to do.
Food brings us together.
