2026-06-24T10:05:13.772Z / 路透社
亚利桑那州华盛顿/凤凰城6月24日电 —— 安吉丽卡·加西亚今年春季申请续领食品券时，她以为自己熟悉这套流程。
这位住在图森市、独自抚养三个孩子的母亲填写了申请表。她多次致电负责管理联邦救助金的亚利桑那州经济安全部，常常在电话中等待到线路中断。她还前往人员不足的经济安全部办公室，排队数小时才见到一名案件经办人。
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等到加西亚在6月获批续领福利时，她已经错过两个月的救济金，一家人只能依靠食品银行捐赠和豆类、大米、玉米饼等廉价主食度日。
“总是要过五关斩六将，”已在该州领取三年食品券的加西亚说道。但如今政府“又增设了更多关卡”。
根据美国农业部截至3月的数据，自唐纳德·特朗普总统签署的税收与开支法案去年7月生效以来，全美已有超过470万人失去了补充营养援助计划（即俗称的食品券）福利，约占该计划参与者总数的11%。
美国第二大社会安全网项目的这项改革，在亚利桑那州的推行速度最快，该州的补充营养援助计划受助人数下降了约一半，降幅为全国之最。
截至5月底的亚利桑那州经济安全部数据显示，这意味着超过45.7万亚利桑那州民众失去了福利，其中包括近19.6万名儿童。
该法案在未来10年内将补充营养援助计划的 funding 削减1870亿美元，降幅约17%，部分措施包括扩大工作要求范围、禁止部分移民领取福利。
法案还将于明年10月起对未达到特定绩效标准的州实施处罚，并将更多行政成本转嫁给各州。
两名补充营养援助计划专家和亚利桑那州经济安全部发言人布雷特·贝齐奥表示，亚利桑那州的受助人数降幅如此之大，原因之一是该州比其他州更快地落实了联邦改革措施。
“亚利桑那州别无选择，只能遵守这些要求，”亚利桑那州民主党州长凯蒂·霍布斯的新闻秘书莉莲娜·索托在一封电子邮件中说道。“如果我们不遵守规定，将被处以数亿美元的罚款，更多弱势亚利桑那州民众将失去食品援助。”
白宫发言人安娜·凯利表示，补充营养援助计划改革“优先保障美国公民，并与各州实施合理的成本分摊措施，以打击浪费、欺诈和滥用行为”，但她并未举出相关实例。
负责管理补充营养援助计划的美国农业部食品与营养管理局将受助人数下降部分归因于工作要求的调整。
食品银行需求创纪录
亚利桑那州食品银行网络（一家与当地食品库合作的全州性组织）的数据显示，补充营养援助计划的削减已推动亚利桑那州前往食品银行的人数达到创纪录水平。
该网络4月的数据显示，约84.3万亚利桑那州民众向食品库寻求帮助，较2025年4月的77.9万人增长约8%，并超过了领取补充营养援助计划的人数。5月食品库使用者人数降至约79万。
即便如此，食品库仍在努力填补“巨大的缺口”，亚利桑那州食品银行网络执行副总裁特里·舒梅克说道。
亚利桑那州经济安全部和美国农业部未就食品银行使用量的上升置评。
迈里安·弗洛雷斯是凤凰城一名拥有七个孩子的母亲，她在5月的采访中表示，自己无法续领补充营养援助计划福利，并于1月失去了每月1100美元的救济金。
她说自己在亚利桑那州经济安全部的电话上等待了数小时，最终还是被挂断。
采访时她说，自己几乎每天都去凤凰城圣文森特·德·保罗食品库，才能养活孩子们。
“有很多个夜晚我都在哭泣，整夜无法入眠，凌晨两点还在算账，决定该支付哪些费用、哪些可以延后，”她说道。
路透社无法确认弗洛雷斯是否已重新申请福利，或是目前仍符合领取资格。
“从缝隙中溜走”
预算与政策优先中心高级政策分析师凯蒂·伯格表示，等待时间变长的部分原因是亚利桑那州州政府为满足新的绩效标准、避免财务处罚，收紧了申请人审核流程。
“他们要么无法拨通爆满的电话线路，要么被要求提供更多根本无法提供的文件，或是提交了文件但州政府没有足够的人手来处理，”她说道。
这些标准源于该州的补充营养援助计划错误率——一项衡量食品券福利多付和少付情况的指标。
亚利桑那州2024年的错误率为8.84%，低于全国10.9%的平均水平，但仍高于新法规定的6%阈值。根据新法，错误率高于该阈值的州需承担最多15%的补充营养援助计划福利成本。历史上，联邦政府承担全部福利成本。
根据亚利桑那州经济安全部2027年预算申请，这可能使亚利桑那州明年损失约2.015亿美元。
贝齐奥表示，为避免“重大财务处罚”的威胁，经济安全部收紧了申请流程，要求提供工资单或租赁协议等证明文件。
圣文森特·德·保罗食品库项目经理辛迪·贝尔纳多表示，随着该州落实联邦改革措施，该组织的许多客户都面临福利申请延误或失去食品券福利的问题。
“他们中有太多人失去了福利，”她说。“他们重新提交了申请，但大多数人甚至无法得到问题的答复。”
联邦法案还将工作要求范围扩大到此前因高失业率或就业岗位不足而获得豁免的地区。
亚利桑那州经济进步中心主任约瑟夫·帕洛米诺表示，亚利桑那州15个县中已有14个现在需要遵守工作要求，而去年仅为1个。
他说，这些变化以及新的文件要求，使民众更难及时获得福利，他们正“从缝隙中溜走”。
贝齐奥表示，该机构正在招聘更多员工，并与第三方呼叫中心签订合同，以缩短等待时间。
食品券削减在全国范围内推行
美国农业部的数据显示，其他州的补充营养援助计划受助人数也出现大幅下降：路易斯安那州下降17.4%，怀俄明州下降11.6%，弗吉尼亚州下降13.7%。
美国农业部食品与营养管理局表示，各州负责准确落实联邦改革措施，该局已发布指导文件帮助各州满足新要求。
路易斯安那州卫生部未回复置评请求。
怀俄明州家庭服务部表示，该州受助人数下降“很大一部分原因”是联邦改革措施。
弗吉尼亚州社会服务部的数据显示，截至今年3月的一年里，该州补充营养援助计划受助人数下降了12%。
“这项法律对联邦的主要影响是，现在更多家庭面临饥饿，而本不该有人挨饿，”该州发言人迈克尔·普利说道。
路透社华盛顿记者莉亚·道格拉斯和凤凰城记者埃丽卡·斯台普顿报道；理查德·瓦尔德马尼斯和苏珊娜·戈登伯格编辑
我们的准则：汤姆森路透社信任原则。
Millions lose food stamps under Trump cuts. Arizona is hardest hit
2026-06-24T10:05:13.772Z / reuters.com
WASHINGTON/PHOENIX, Arizona, June 24 (Reuters) – When Angelica Garcia tried to renew her food stamps this spring, she said she thought she knew the drill.
The single mother of three in Tucson filled out the application. She repeatedly called Arizona’s Department of Economic Security, the state agency administering the federal aid, often staying on hold until the line dropped. She visited a thinly staffed DES office and waited hours for a caseworker.
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By the time Garcia was reapproved in June, she’d missed two months of benefits while her family got by on food-pantry donations and cheap staples like beans, rice and tortillas.
“There’s hoops to jump through — always,” said Garcia, who has used food stamps in the state for three years. But now the government is “adding more hoops.”
More than 4.7 million people nationwide have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, since President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending law took effect last July, according to data through March from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — about 11% of participants.
Nowhere have the changes to America’s second-largest social safety-net program taken hold as rapidly as in Arizona, where the number of SNAP recipients has fallen by about half, the steepest drop in the country.
That means lost benefits for more than 457,000 Arizonans, including nearly 196,000 children, according to DES data as of the end of May.
The law reduces SNAP funding by $187 billion, or about 17%, over the next 10 years, in part by expanding work requirements and barring some immigrants from receiving benefits.
It also imposes penalties on states that fail to meet certain performance standards beginning in October next year. And it shifts more administrative costs onto states.
Among the reasons enrollment has fallen so steeply in Arizona is that the state has moved to implement the federal changes more quickly than other states, according to two SNAP experts and the DES spokesperson, Brett Bezio.
“Arizona has no choice but to meet these requirements,” Liliana Soto, press secretary for Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, said in an email. “If we don’t comply, we will be fined hundreds of millions of dollars and more vulnerable Arizonans will lose their food assistance.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the SNAP overhaul “prioritizes American citizens, and implements reasonable cost-sharing measures with states to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse,” without offering examples.
The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration, which administers SNAP, attributed the decline in enrollment in part to the work requirement changes.
RECORD FOOD-PANTRY DEMAND
The SNAP cuts have driven a record number of people to food banks in Arizona, according to the Arizona Food Bank Network, a statewide organization that works with local pantries.
About 843,000 Arizonans sought support from a food pantry in April, about an 8% increase over 779,000 in April 2025 — and surpassing the number of people receiving SNAP, according to AFBN data. Food bank users fell in May to about 790,000, the data show.
Even so, food pantries are scrambling to fill “a massive gap,” said Terri Shoemaker, executive vice president of the AFBN.
DES and the USDA did not comment on the increase in food-bank use.
Myriam Flores, a mother of seven in Phoenix, said in a May interview she was unable to renew her access to SNAP and lost $1,100 a month in benefits in January.
She said she spent hours on hold with Arizona’s DES, only for calls to drop.
At the time of her interview, she said she visits the St. Vincent de Paul pantry in Phoenix nearly every day so she can feed her children.
“There are nights of crying, nights of not sleeping, when I lose sleep at 2 a.m. doing the math, deciding what to pay for and what to put off,” she said.
Reuters could not determine whether Flores has resumed her efforts to get benefits or whether she’s currently eligible.
‘FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS’
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that the longer wait times are partly the result of stricter processes for vetting applicants, introduced by Arizona’s state agency to meet the new performance standards and avoid financial penalties.
“They can’t get through on the overloaded phone line, or they’re being asked for more and more paperwork that they can’t provide, or they do provide it but the state doesn’t have capacity to process it,” she said.
Those standards grew out of the state’s SNAP error rate — a measure of overpayments and underpayments of food stamp benefits.
Arizona’s error rate in 2024 was 8.84%, below the national average of 10.9%, but still above the 6% threshold that — under the new law — would require states to cover up to 15% of the cost of SNAP benefits. Historically, the federal government has paid the full cost of benefits.
That could cost Arizona about $201.5 million next year, according to the DES 2027 budget request.
To avoid the threat of “significant financial penalties,” DES has tightened its application process by requiring documentation like pay stubs or leases, Bezio said.
Cindy Bernardo, a program manager at the St. Vincent de Paul pantry, said many of the organization’s clients have faced delays or lost their SNAP benefits as the state enacts the federal changes.
“So many of them have lost their benefits,” she said. “And they have reapplied, and most of them can’t even get an answer to their questions.”
The federal law also expanded work requirements to areas that previously had waivers because of high unemployment or insufficient jobs.
Fourteen of Arizona’s 15 counties are now subject to work requirements, compared to just one last year, said Joseph Palomino, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress.
Those changes, as well as the new demands for documentation, are making it harder for people to get timely access to benefits, he said, and they’re “falling through the cracks.”
Bezio said the agency is hiring more staff and contracting with a third-party call center to improve wait times.
SNAP CUTS ROLL OUT NATIONWIDE
Other states are recording steep drops in SNAP enrollment: 17.4% in Louisiana, 11.6% in Wyoming and 13.7% in Virginia, USDA data show.
The USDA’s FNA said states are responsible for accurately implementing the federal changes, and that it has issued guidance to help them meet new requirements.
The Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment.
The Wyoming Department of Family Services said “a large portion” of the state’s decline was due to the federal changes.
In Virginia, SNAP enrollment fell 12% in the year ending in March, according to the Department of Social Services.
“The primary impact of this law on the Commonwealth is that now more families are going hungry when nobody should have to go hungry,” said spokesperson Michael Pulley.
Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington and Erica Stapleton in Phoenix; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Suzanne Goldenberg
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.