What percentage of Somali Minnesotans receive SNAP/EBT benefits as of 2024-2025?

1. What the public sources actually report about SNAP use in Minnesota

State and federal summaries and news reports cited here consistently describe the scale of SNAP in Minnesota — about 440,000+ Minnesotans using SNAP benefits during the recent disruptions — and note program mechanics like EBT cards and Summer EBT (SUN Bucks) enrollment, but none of these items report the share of Minnesota’s Somali community on SNAP as a distinct percentage for 2024–2025 ^{[1] [2] [6] [7]}. The U.S. Economic Research Service gives national and state SNAP participation shares (e.g., 12.3% nationally in FY2024 and 4.8–21.2% range across states) but not a breakdown by detailed national-origin groups within a state ^[7].

2. Why a precise “Somali Minnesotan SNAP percentage” is hard to find

Public administrative SNAP dashboards and state guidance typically publish totals, demographic slices by broad race/age, or issues like children served by Summer EBT — not clean, reliably comparable percentages for narrowly defined nationality-origin groups in a state ^{[2] [6] [7]}. Fact-checkers warn that charts claiming such granular percentages often misuse the American Community Survey (ACS) filtered results or mislabel what “households receiving SNAP” means, producing misleading conclusions about immigrant or national-origin groups ^{[4] [5]}. The Minnesota Department of Human Services and DCYF resources emphasize eligibility rules and multilingual outreach (including Somali) rather than publishing Somali-specific participation rates ^{[8] [9]}.

3. What the available sources say about Somalis in Minnesota (context)

Minnesota hosts the largest Somali community in the U.S.; demographic and public-health profiles note concentration in the Twin Cities and long-standing refugee and secondary-migration patterns, but these profile pages do not quantify SNAP receipt among Somalis ^{[3] [10]}. Policy coverage and advocacy pieces highlight multilingual program access and outreach (Somali-language resources for SNAP, School Nutrition verification notices in Somali), which indicates state-level recognition of the community’s presence in safety-net programs without providing a numeric SNAP participation rate for that group ^{[8] [11]}.

4. Misinformation risks and recent media attention

Viral social-media charts have claimed that nationality groups like “Somali” comprise unusually high shares of SNAP recipients; PolitiFact and Wired reporting in the search results find such charts misleading and note the ACS and USDA data are often misinterpreted — for example, national totals show whites are the largest single racial group among recipients in absolute numbers, and household filters in ACS can be misused to imply nationality-by-benefit rates not supported by admin data ^{[4] [5]}. This creates a high risk of drawing definitive conclusions about Somali Minnesotans’ SNAP use from unvetted visualizations ^{[4] [5]}.

5. Related policy and legal developments that affect SNAP context

Recent federal and state debates about SNAP eligibility and noncitizens — including attorneys general pushing back on USDA guidance and state-level outreach during program disruptions — can change who is eligible, how states implement rules, and how many people are enrolled, complicating cross-year comparisons ^{[12] [2]}. Minnesota coverage during the November 2025 federal shutdown described around 440,000 Minnesotans affected and noted court and policy actions to preserve benefits; those are statewide figures and not Somali-specific ^{[13] [1]}.

6. How to get a concrete Somali-specific figure (if you need one)

To produce a defensible percentage you would need either (a) a state administrative cross-tab from Minnesota DHS/DCYF that links SNAP cases to a self‑identified Somali origin field (if collected), or (b) careful reanalysis of the American Community Survey microdata with transparent filtering and clear definitions of household vs. individual SNAP receipt. The sources here do not show such a published statistic; PolitiFact’s and Wired’s reviews caution that ad‑hoc charts often misapply ACS filters ^{[4] [5]}. Minnesota departments offer multilingual help lines and application portals but do not publish the Somali-share statistic in the materials provided ^{[2] [9]}.

Conclusion and takeaway

Available sources in this packet do not provide a verified percentage of Somali Minnesotans receiving SNAP/EBT in 2024–2025; attempting to assert one from viral charts without the underlying methodology is likely to be misleading ^{[4] [5]}. For a reliable number, request a public-data cross-tab from Minnesota DHS/DCYF or a careful ACS microdata analysis with explicit methods; those data sources are the ones that could, if released, validate any Somali-specific SNAP participation rate (not found in current reporting).