Millions of Hungry People are Being Denied Help
A Conversation with Catlin Nchako about the SNAP Benefit Crisis
This piece originally appeared on Fran Quigley’s Substack We Can Do Better: Ending Poverty in Our Time on June 25, 2026.
In this episode, we talk with Catlin Nchako of the topnotch research and policy institute Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Catlin and his colleagues are documenting the devastating impact of the Trump/Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” As Catlin told us, the law has already pushed 3.5 million people off of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka Food Stamps program.
You can see those numbers, and the numbers for your own state, on the Center on Budget’s website, specifically an ongoing feature called, SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Republican Megabill Is Implemented: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill
Catlin is a data researcher, but he emphasizes here the human cost to children and to our communities. In fact, the CBPP has confirmed that hundreds of thousands of children are no longer receiving food assistance.
Catlin also explains how to fix this: the federal government needs to press pause on the transfer of SNAP financial responsibility to the states.
That pause could help ease the very real suffering going on in the short-term, while repealing these mean-spirited barriers (more on the impact of red-tape work requirements here ) is the long-term answer.
You can listen to the episode here:
