Fact check: How many food stamp recipients have jobs or are actively seeking employment?

1. How advocates and critics frame the central statistic — “Most SNAP recipients work sometime in the year”

Analysts from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report that most SNAP participants who can work do so: over half of working-age, non-disabled SNAP participants worked in a given month in 2015, and 74 percent worked sometime in the 12 months before or after that month; a 2024 CBPP update found 86 percent of non-disabled, working-age SNAP households reported earnings during 2021 ^{[1] [2]}. These studies emphasize annual earnings or employment spells, capturing intermittent work and low-wage jobs typical among SNAP households.

2. Why other counts say “most don’t work”: narrow samples and different time windows

A 2024 blog cited a 38 percent employment rate for able-bodied adults on SNAP from 2017–2019, concluding 62 percent did not work at all in that period. That figure uses a different denominator and timeframe — focusing narrowly on able-bodied adults and specific multi-year windows, which excludes many SNAP participants who work intermittently or who are in households with other earners ^[3]. The disparity illustrates how choice of sample and measure drives headline conclusions.

3. What the USDA and 2025 rule-making add to the story about who must work

USDA rule documents and contemporary reporting state that Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) face a requirement to work or participate in approved activities 80 hours per month to receive SNAP for more than three months in a 36-month period, with exemptions for disability, pregnancy, caregiving, veterans, and homelessness. USDA estimates 700,000–900,000 people could be affected nationwide, and state-level reporting highlights smaller counts (for example, roughly 5,500 Kansans flagged) depending on local demographics and waivers ^{[4] [6] [7]}. The effective date is November 1, 2025, tightening a patchwork of prior waivers ^{[5] [8]}.

4. Who is counted as “working” under different rules — and why that matters for eligibility

Policy descriptions distinguish general work requirements (applying to many able-bodied adults aged 16–59) from the stricter ABAWD rules targeting ages 18–54, with the latter tied to the 80-hour threshold and limited benefit duration beyond three months. Employment measured for policy compliance is monthly-hours based, whereas survey analyses often report annual earnings or whether someone worked at any point in a year. This mismatch means people with sporadic or part-time jobs may show up as “working” in survey data but still fail to meet monthly hour thresholds used for program eligibility ^{[6] [9]}.

5. Reconciling the numbers: timing, definitions, and policy versus lived experience

Differences across sources stem from measurement choices and temporal coverage: CBPP’s 2015 and 2021-centered analyses emphasize annual work incidence and include households, yielding higher work rates, while the 2017–2019 stat focuses on a subset of adults across years and reports lower employment prevalence ^{[1] [2] [3]}. USDA’s rule impact estimates ^[10] address regulatory exposure, not employment frequency, so the same individual could be counted as a worker in one dataset yet as noncompliant under the new monthly-hour requirement ^{[4] [5]}.

6. What the policy change likely means for program access and measurement going forward

The November 2025 implementation of uniform ABAWD rules removes much prior flexibility, increasing the number of SNAP participants required to meet monthly work thresholds or risk time-limited benefits; USDA projects hundreds of thousands affected, with state-by-state variation. Because program compliance will now hinge on monthly-hour documentation rather than annual income measures, administrative caseloads, denial rates, and appeals may rise even without measurable changes in annual employment patterns reported by surveys ^{[5] [4]}.

7. Limits, trade-offs, and data gaps that deserve attention

Available accounts rely on different years (2015, 2017–2019, 2021) and samples (household vs. individual ABAWD subsets), leaving uncertainty about post-pandemic labor patterns and short-term job churn among SNAP participants. The USDA’s affected-range estimate (700,000–900,000) is a model-based projection and will vary by state waiver policy, local labor markets, and administrative capacity to document hours or exemptions, creating real-world gaps between projections and outcomes ^{[1] [3] [4]}.

8. Bottom line: headline claims need context — work is common over a year, but rules focus on monthly hours

In plain terms, most SNAP participants who are able-bodied and not disabled have earnings at some point during a year, but narrower measures and the new November 2025 ABAWD rules emphasize monthly-hour thresholds that capture different behavior and could render many intermittently employed people ineligible. Understanding who “has a job” therefore depends on which timeframe and population you ask, and the new rules will shift the administrative definition toward continuous monthly work compliance rather than annual earnings incidence ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}.