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How has the number of Walmart workers on SNAP changed from 2019 to 2023?
Executive Summary
The available materials provided do not establish how the number of Walmart employees receiving SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits changed between 2019 and 2023; the only concrete employee-level snapshot across the set is a February 2020 count of about 14,541 Walmart employees receiving SNAP in nine states, reported in coverage of a Government Accountability Office–related analysis [1] [2]. Reporting and follow-up pieces in the dataset focus on the prevalence of SNAP spending at Walmart and on broader employer-level findings from 2020, but none of the supplied items include a direct 2019 baseline or a 2023 follow-up to permit a trend calculation across those years [3] [4].
1. Why the 2019→2023 change can’t be calculated from these documents
None of the supplied sources contains both a 2019 figure and a 2023 figure for the count of Walmart workers on SNAP, so no valid year-to-year comparison is possible using only these items. The articles and analyses repeatedly reference a 2020 snapshot—often tied to a GAO-style review commissioned or publicized around Senatorial advocacy—but they stop short of presenting an explicit time series that would show increases, decreases, or stability across the four-year span in question [2] [3] [1]. Because trend assessments require consistent measurement points or a documented methodology across years, the absence of a 2019 baseline and a 2023 follow-up in the provided set means any numeric claim about change would be unsupported by this record and would risk misrepresenting what these documents actually report [1].
2. What the available 2020 snapshot actually says and how reliable it is
The dataset includes reporting that, as of February 2020, approximately 14,541 Walmart employees were SNAP recipients in nine states, and related figures for Medicaid enrollment in a subset of states—data presented in coverage of a GAO-style inquiry into employer-level reliance on public benefits [1] [2]. Those items frame the count as a partial-state snapshot, not a full national census of Walmart employees on SNAP, which means the 2020 number should be understood as limited in geographic and methodological scope. The original reporting context connects the figures to policy advocacy and a Senator-commissioned report, which clarifies the data’s provenance but also calls for caution when generalizing from the stated counts to the entire employer workforce [3].
3. Broader coverage addresses SNAP spending at Walmart, not employee counts
More recent materials in the collection shift the frame away from employee SNAP participation toward consumer SNAP spending concentration at Walmart, with reports in 2025 indicating Walmart captures roughly 24–25% of SNAP beneficiaries’ consumer spending; these items reflect market-share dynamics rather than employee benefit enrollment [4] [5] [6]. Those pieces are relevant to understanding SNAP’s retail ecosystem and Walmart’s role in distributing SNAP dollars, but they do not provide employee-level SNAP participation counts for 2019 or 2023 and therefore do not fill the gap needed to compute the requested change over time [4].
4. Competing emphases and potential agendas in the supplied coverage
The set includes coverage tied to a Senator-commissioned or advocacy-linked report and to outlets that emphasize corporate reliance on public benefits; those contexts frame the data in a way that spotlights employer responsibility for low wages and taxpayer subsidies of employee welfare [3] [1]. Other items emphasize retail market share for SNAP dollars, a different policy focus that centers on access and retail concentration rather than employer wage practices [4]. Because the dataset mixes advocacy-oriented employer-level analysis with market-share reporting, readers should note that the same figures can be used to support distinct policy narratives even while the underlying numeric coverage remains limited to specific snapshots and geographies [2] [4].
5. What would be needed to answer the original question definitively
A credible determination of how Walmart employees on SNAP changed from 2019 to 2023 would require comparable, year-by-year counts or a reproducible dataset covering the same jurisdictions and measurement method across both endpoints—ideally a national or consistently sampled administrative extract from SNAP enrollment data linked to employer identifiers, or a GAO-style multi-year analysis that explicitly reports 2019 and 2023 figures. The supplied items point to where partial data exist (a February 2020 snapshot and later SNAP spending analyses) but do not supply the requisite 2019 baseline or 2023 follow-up to calculate a trend; obtaining such a trend would therefore require accessing GAO reports, USDA or state SNAP administrative records, or Walmart payroll/benefits disclosures that cover the full span [1] [3] [4].