How many New Yorkers will be pushed into poverty by federal cuts to the SNAP program? 

This Robin Hood-funded report from the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy and the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates the number of New Yorkers expected to fall into poverty as a result of major changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides near-cash food assistance benefits to millions of low-income Americans and was fundamentally changed by the recently-enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.

Understanding the effects of changes to policies on family income and poverty is a key priority for those who seek to craft smarter, evidence-based policy. Federal cuts to SNAP spending in New York State are projected to amount to at least $13 billion over 10 years, potentially more; but because of considerable uncertainty in who exactly will lose benefits, deriving precise projections of New Yorkers moved into poverty is difficult with traditional modeling techniques.

Using a new method to estimate the effects of cuts in the face of such uncertainty, we find that the CBO’s projected cuts are likely to cause over 100,000 New Yorkers to fall into poverty each year from 2028 to 2034, reaching a peak of over 120,000 New Yorkers in 2032.