How do SNAP enrollment rates for Somali Americans compare to other immigrant groups?
Executive summary
Multiple reports and viral charts have claimed that Somali Americans enroll in SNAP at very high rates—figures floated include about 42% nationally and as high as 54% in some writeups—but these numbers sit alongside important caveats: much of the highest-rate data come from state-level analyses (notably Minnesota) or advocacy and advocacy-adjacent outlets, and national comparisons of immigrants generally show similar or lower SNAP take-up than U.S.-born households once methodological adjustments are made [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the headline numbers say and where they come from
Several outlets and reports circulating in late 2025 cite that roughly 42% of Somali Americans receive SNAP nationally or even higher rates—one local-centric analysis and subsequent coverage put food-stamp receipt among Somalis as high as 54% and overall welfare use above 80% in some samples, with particularly large rates reported for Somali households in Minnesota [1] [2] [5] [3].
2. Why national and state figures diverge: Minnesota as the focal point
The most striking, high-percentage claims are anchored to Minnesota, where Somali communities are concentrated and where the Center for Immigration Studies and state demographers reported very high welfare participation percentages for Somali households; FactCheck noted figures like 81% of Somali immigrant households in Minnesota using some form of welfare, and Minnesota’s specific demographic context has been central to those reports [3] [6].
3. Broader immigrant comparisons and careful national analysis
Taken nationally, the picture is less sensational: peer-reviewed or mainstream analyses adjusting for household composition and survey underreporting find that poor immigrant households participate in SNAP at rates roughly comparable to or slightly below poor U.S.-born households—examples include a Migration Policy Institute-derived finding that about 47% of poor immigrant households with all members eligible participated versus 50% of poor households with U.S.-born members, and Newsweek reporting that immigrants were 38% less costly to SNAP in administrative data [4].
4. Misleading charts, data limitations, and the politics of statistics
Viral charts claiming Somali or Afghan recipients are the largest SNAP cohorts have been debunked—PolitiFact and Wired found those graphics misleading or fabricated and noted the USDA doesn’t collect the granular national ethnicity breakdowns those charts implied, underscoring that public claims about immigrant-group SNAP dominance often outpace the underlying data [7] [8]. At the same time, organizations such as CIS emphasize Minnesota ACS-based analyses to highlight disparities, and those institutional perspectives carry explicit policy agendas—CIS favors lower immigration and frames its findings accordingly [3] [5].
5. Bottom line, caveats, and what’s missing
The safest, evidence-based conclusion is that Somali Americans in certain localities—especially Minnesota—have been reported to have high SNAP and overall welfare receipt rates compared with native-headed households, but national-level claims that Somalis (or other specific immigrant groups) overwhelmingly dominate SNAP recipients are not supported by comprehensive federal ethnicity data and have been challenged by fact-checkers and mainstream analysts; moreover, adjusted national analyses show immigrant SNAP participation comparable to or lower than U.S.-born counterparts once eligibility, household composition, and underreporting are taken into account [6] [7] [4]. Reporting is limited by differences between administrative data, survey data, and the granularity of ethnicity coding—so while local high rates are real and consequential, extrapolating them into a simple national comparison misleads without careful qualification [3] [8].