How has the share of Walmart workers receiving SNAP benefits changed from 2010 to 2025?

1. No single source gives a 2010–2025 trend for Walmart employees on SNAP

There is no source in the provided set that publishes a consistent national time series showing the percentage or share of Walmart workers on SNAP for each year from 2010 through 2025; available reporting gives state snapshots, periodic studies, or retail spending shares by SNAP shoppers, not an annual employer-participation rate across that full span (available sources do not mention a 2010–2025 national series).

2. What the GAO / federal-style studies and advocacy reports do show

Congressional-watchdog-style reporting and advocacy analyses have repeatedly flagged that Walmart is among the largest private employers of SNAP recipients in specific states and samples. A 2020 summary of a GAO-style study reported tens of thousands of Walmart employees receiving SNAP across a subset of states (for nine or 11 states depending on the write-up), for example roughly 14,500 SNAP recipients employed by Walmart across nine responding states in that compilation ^{[3] [5]}. These are strong indicators that many Walmart workers rely on SNAP, but they are state-sample counts rather than a national trendline and therefore cannot be directly converted to a national rate from 2010–2025 ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Differentiating two related but distinct measures: workers on SNAP vs. SNAP shopper spending

Reporting often conflates two different metrics: (A) the share or number of Walmart employees who receive SNAP benefits, and (B) the share of overall SNAP purchasing that flows to Walmart. Market-research firm Numerator and multiple 2025 news pieces focus on the latter, finding Walmart captures roughly a quarter of SNAP shopper spending in 2025 (about 24%)—a retail-spend share, not a worker-benefit rate ^{[1] [2]}. That 24% figure describes consumer purchasing behavior of SNAP recipients, not the percentage of Walmart’s workforce enrolled in SNAP ^{[1] [2]}.

4. Evidence of persistence, not a clear upward/downward national trajectory

Multiple sources across years (advocacy groups, GAO-style reporting, and 2025 coverage) consistently identify Walmart among top employers whose workers use SNAP. That consistency suggests persistence of the phenomenon—Walmart remains a major private-sector employer of SNAP recipients into 2025—but the available material does not quantify a directional change (increase or decrease) in the share of Walmart workers on SNAP between 2010 and 2025 ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

5. Why a precise 2010–2025 percentage is hard to produce from these materials

The reasons are methodological and data-limited: reported counts are often state-limited samples (not national), some studies report absolute employee counts without denominators (so percentages of Walmart’s total workforce can’t be calculated from the cited excerpts), and retail market studies measure customer spending patterns rather than employee benefits enrollment ^{[3] [1] [2]}. As a result, available sources do not include an annual national share of Walmart workers on SNAP covering 2010–2025.

6. What would be needed to answer the question rigorously

A rigorous answer requires either (A) a GAO or USDA analysis that publishes annual counts or rates of SNAP enrollment among Walmart employees nationwide for each year 2010–2025, or (B) Walmart-provided workforce counts by year combined with matched administrative SNAP enrollment records—neither of which is present in the provided documents (available sources do not mention such a complete national series) ^{[3] [5]}.

7. Context and competing narratives in the reporting

Advocacy outlets and investigative pieces frame Walmart’s large absolute counts of employees on SNAP as evidence of low wages and public subsidy of corporate labor costs ^{[4] [6]}. Market-research outlets and mainstream coverage emphasize Walmart’s dominant share of SNAP consumer spending and how SNAP policy disruptions affect retail sales, focusing on company exposure to program changes rather than employer-side enrollment rates ^{[2] [1]}. Both perspectives are supported by the available sources but they answer different questions: one about worker reliance on public benefits, the other about where SNAP dollars are spent ^{[4] [2]}.

If you want, I can (A) search for GAO/USDA reports or peer-reviewed studies that might show a yearly national series for employees on SNAP, or (B) draft an approach to estimate trend bounds using state-level GAO snapshots plus Walmart workforce totals—both steps would require acquiring sources beyond those supplied here.