Fact check: What percentage of employees at kroger are on medicaid and snaps

1. Leaked internal data paints a stark picture, but it stops short of a precise enrollment rate

A 2018 internal Kroger presentation, reported in 2022, documents that hundreds of thousands of associates lived in poverty and many relied on food stamps and public aid, with at least one in five associates on food stamps and a quarter of very loyal associates identified as receiving SNAP-like support ^[1]. This internal finding is powerful evidence that large numbers of Kroger employees depend on assistance, but the memo does not translate directly into an exact current percentage on Medicaid or SNAP, nor does it provide a breakdown by program or a recent enrollment snapshot. The memo’s age ^[3] and the changing labor and benefits landscape since then limit its reliability as a present-day percentage estimate. The reporting anchored this internal evidence to the company’s pay structure and hours, but the document itself lacks the explicit metric the question seeks.

2. Industry-level analyses offer useful proxies but are not Kroger-specific or conclusive

Economic Roundtable and related industry-focused reporting estimate that 15% of nonsupervisory grocery workers receive SNAP benefits and that grocery workers are about 50% more likely to depend on Medicaid than workers in other sectors ^[2]. These figures provide context for the grocery sector and imply that a meaningful minority of supermarket frontline workers use SNAP, and that Medicaid reliance among grocery workers is materially higher than average. However, these are sector-wide estimates—they do not single out Kroger specifically, nor do they reconcile differences between full-time and part-time staffing, geographic variations in Medicaid eligibility, or temporal changes tied to policy shifts and pandemic-era enrollment increases ^[2]. Treating these proxies as Kroger-specific would overstate the precision of the available evidence.

3. Conflicting reports and broad claims raise red flags about overstatement

Some sources have asserted that up to three-quarters of Kroger employees are food insecure or that Kroger ranks among the top employers of Medicaid and SNAP enrollees, but these claims lack transparent, replicable data backing a precise percentage for program enrollment ^[4]. The divergence between the leaked internal memo’s “at least 20–25% on food stamps” and more extreme claims suggests differing methodologies, time frames, or rhetorical aims behind the reporting. Advocacy groups and watchdog reports may emphasize worst-case figures to push for policy or corporate change, whereas industry or corporate statements may minimize these counts; neither approach yields a definitive, up-to-date enrollment percentage for Kroger’s workforce without access to company payroll-benefit linkages or government administrative records.

4. Recent retail policy shifts illuminate why the question matters now

In late October 2025, reporting highlighted that major retailers, including Kroger, are expanding discounts and perks for SNAP and Medicaid shoppers, reflecting both growing use of assistance programs among consumers and retailers’ strategic adaptation ^[5]. These retailer-focused moves do not directly measure employee enrollment, but they underscore the broader ecosystem in which companies operate: rising program use among consumers and workers increases public scrutiny of employer pay and benefits. The timing of these reports (October 2025) suggests renewed attention to benefits dependence, but they again do not supply a headcount of Kroger employees on Medicaid or SNAP, leaving the precise employer-level prevalence unresolved.

5. National Medicaid work patterns provide contextual perspective, not a Kroger answer

A KFF analysis finds that a large majority of adults enrolled in Medicaid under age 65 are working or have work-related constraints—92% were working, caregiving, ill, or disabled—demonstrating that Medicaid enrollment is common among the working-age labor force and that program participation frequently coexists with employment ^[6]. This national pattern supports the plausibility that many grocery workers, including some at Kroger, could be Medicaid enrollees. Still, KFF’s national labor-attached Medicaid data are contextual, not an employer-level census, and cannot be used to assert a Kroger-specific percentage without cross-referencing employer rosters with administrative program data.

6. Bottom line: evidence shows substantial reliance but not a single verified percentage—here’s what would settle it

Taken together, the sources establish that a significant portion of grocery workers depend on SNAP and Medicaid and that Kroger has been identified in multiple reports as a major employer of low-wage retail labor ^{[1] [2] [4]}. No available, credible, and recent public data set, however, lists a verified percentage of Kroger employees currently enrolled in Medicaid or receiving SNAP. Definitive answers require either Kroger to release current, program-linked workforce data or matched administrative data from state Medicaid and SNAP agencies analyzed for employer of record. Until such data are published, the most accurate statement is that Kroger employs many workers who rely on public assistance, but a precise enrollment percentage for Medicaid and SNAP cannot be confidently reported from the cited sources ^{[1] [2] [5] [6]}.