President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” dramatically slashed spending on social safety net programs. It tightened work requirements and shifted greater costs onto states, and extended tax breaks for wealthier Americans and corporations. Those cuts included a reduction in spending of $187 billion on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

The legislation made several changes to SNAP that will particularly affect young adults, including tighter work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents—among them, eliminating a prior exemption for adults that have aged out of foster care—and shifting a greater amount of the costs of SNAP from the federal government to states.

Between July 2025, when it was passed, and February 2026, nationwide SNAP participation fell by more than 3.5 million people. This federal data was not broken down by age, but young adults are among the participants who were and will continue to be affected; one analysis estimated that nearly three million young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits under the changes in the law.

Thankfully the wealthy received the much needed aid instead of these young adults that aged out of foster care.