Nearly 63,000 Connecticut residents have lost federal nutrition benefits since Congress and President Donald Trump tightened eligibility last July — roughly double state officials’ projections, according to a new report Thursday from a New Haven-based social policy group.
Connecticut Voices for Children also warned those cutbacks in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits have cost the state’s economy $155 million over the past year, even as unemployment here has surged to the second-highest state rate in the nation.
The nonprofit group also urged the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont to replace their temporary, piecemeal response to the hunger crisis and employ more lasting solutions, including a new state-funded nutrition benefit.
Those SNAP cutbacks losses “arrived at a time when many households were already stretched, and when SNAP was one of the most effective tools available to stabilize food access and household budgets,” said Emily Knox, research and policy director at Connecticut Voices, who co-wrote the report with research and policy associate Ruchi Sheth. “This isn’t a marginal change at all in program participation. It is a substantial contraction in access to food assistance across the state.”
The 62,770 Connecticut residents who lost access to SNAP in the first year after Congress passed House Resolution 1 — an omnibus fiscal measure commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — represent 17% of the state’s overall SNAP caseload prior to passage, according to the report.
More importantly, researchers noted, that’s roughly double the estimated 21,000 to 36,000 reduction projected by Connecticut social services officials.
“Not surprisingly, the locations that are hardest hit in the state are among the poorest parts of the state and have the largest proportion of SNAP beneficiaries,” Knox and Sheth wrote. “Not only are these areas in the state projected to lose the most in SNAP benefits, they are also home to some of Connecticut’s food deserts, which are areas where access to nutritious food is limited,” they added.
Half of the SNAP recipients removed over the past year came from just seven municipalities: Hartford, Waterbury, New Haven, Bridgeport, New Britain, Meriden and East Hartford.
And the financial impact goes far beyond the $155 million in benefits lost.
Economists generally estimate each dollar of SNAP benefits spent typically triggers $1.50 in economic activity. “Those benefits are spent quickly at local grocery stores and food retailers,” often in poor communities, Sheth noted.
Researchers also estimate state government’s annual hit will top $130 million, due to administrative and other operational costs Washington has shifted onto Connecticut.
University of Connecticut economist Fred Carstensen, who heads the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, said these changes, collectively, could translate into hundreds of job losses. This, in turn, would reduce households’ ability to pay income and sales taxes to the state and could force more to rely on free care at hospital emergency rooms and federally qualified health centers.
And while some state and business leaders point enthusiastically to Connecticut’s payroll employment recently reaching an all-time high, topping 1.7 million filled jobs, “there’s something going on that is unhealthy,” Carstensen said.
Connecticut’s unemployment hit 5.2% by the end of June, following six months of increases, leaving it tied for the second-highest state rate in the U.S., behind only California.
While the number of financial services jobs and other high-paying positions that Connecticut workers commute to in neighboring states has shrunk, the state’s job growth has been in service work and other low-paying posts, Carstensen added.
Researchers: Connecticut needs “an enduring response”
While Connecticut has taken several steps to mitigate the federal cutbacks, they are too modest and temporary to represent a realistic solution, advocates and some legislators said Thursday.
Lamont has used $24 million from a special reserve fund created by legislators to support Connecticut Foodshare. But Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski has said the state’s network of food banks and pantries is equipped to cover roughly one-eighth of the need created by the loss of SNAP benefits.
The governor also dedicated $8.5 million this summer to provide $300 grocery store gift cards to an estimated 25,000 residents who have lost SNAP.
The administration also has upgraded systems and bolstered staff at the Department of Social Services and directed funds to nonprofit community action agencies and to the United Way’s 2-1-1 information service to guide residents through the SNAP application process or help them identify other nutrition assistance.
“The Lamont administration, in coordination with the Department of Social Services, has moved quickly to protect vulnerable families impacted by recent changes to federal nutrition assistance programs,” the department wrote Thursday in a statement. “Over the past year, we have invested hundreds of millions in emergency responses to help ensure that everyone who qualifies can access the food and support they need.”
The department added that “these investments are part of our ongoing commitment to help ensure that Connecticut families are able to access critical benefits. The department will continue working with our partners and monitoring the impacts of these changes.”
But Knox said the Lamont administration has taken “meaningful steps … but the scale and structure of that response remain far smaller and more temporary than federal” cutbacks, and many households were stretched thin even before July 2025.
Connecticut, despite its high average household income, has the highest food insecurity rate in New England and “spends far less per person on food insecurity than neighboring states like Massachusetts and Vermont,” Knox said.
In Connecticut, where Democrats control the governor’s office and a majority of both chambers of the General Assembly, leaders have expressed hope that their party can regain control of the U.S. House this November and at least block further erosion of the federal safety net by Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress.
But Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices, said the best SNAP advocates can hope for “is more of a slowing down” of the program’s erosion, “which which ultimately means that, unfortunately, not much will change.”
Given that likelihood, the nonprofit challenged Lamont and lawmakers to create an “enduring” state-backed nutrition benefit for those who’ve lost SNAP benefits and also to carve a special fund in the state budget to ensure the program is maintained.
Connecticut residents had been receiving about $75 million in SNAP benefits each month, and 17% of that would involve $12 million to $13 million per month, or roughly $150 million per year. State government closed last fiscal year with almost $1.5 billion unspent — and that’s after transferring another $412 million in surplus into a new venture to expand affordable childcare.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, co-chair of the Human Services, both support a state-funded SNAP program, though they haven’t specified how broad of a population it should serve.
“We need a sustainable, enduring solution … and provide everybody with the resources to feed people,” said Osten, who predicted earlier this year households losing SNAP benefits would far exceed state projections. The Sprague lawmaker’s district includes Norwich, which ranks 10th-highest among communities whose residents have lost SNAP benefits over the past year.
“There could be a situation where there are people starving in this state, and we’ve done nothing to prepare for that,” Lesser said, “and that’s really unacceptable.”
