Analyst cites slide in average SNAP benefits per participant as USDA steps up fraud, waste and abuse enforcement

A food retail equity analyst says a key metric for grocers and supermarkets tied to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has deteriorated under President Donald Trump, as USDA increases enforcement efforts aimed at reducing fraud, waste and abuse. In a note shared with clients Saturday, Scott Marks of Jefferies highlighted what he described as a sharp decline in the average SNAP benefit paid per participant, pointing to an enforcement environment that is also associated with elevated payment error rates, according to the report.

Marks tied the chart’s direction to USDA’s intensified work to root out fraud, waste and abuse in the SNAP program. The report characterizes the administration’s push as raising scrutiny and related compliance activity around benefits, with potential downstream effects on retailers that depend on SNAP redemptions for grocery traffic and revenue stability.

The analysis in the report emphasizes the consumer-facing implication of the change: if average benefits decline per participant, the amount households can spend at participating retailers can also fall, even if participation rates do not. For retailers, that dynamic can translate into lower in-store purchasing tied to SNAP transactions and may affect how companies plan inventory, staffing, and pricing promotions for SNAP-using customers.

Marks’s comments also frame the issue as part of a longer-running policy tension in SNAP administration: aggressive error reduction efforts can coincide with changes in program measurement and payment practices, which may raise or reveal payment errors even as investigators work to close compliance gaps. The report does not provide specific numerical figures in its summary, but it presents the declining benefit metric as one of the “most concerning” charts for food retail equities.

While the report attributes the trend to USDA action and broader administration efforts, it offers it through the lens of a financial analyst discussion rather than as a USDA-issued statistic. As a result, retailers, investors, and policymakers may look for confirmation from USDA program reports, audit findings, and payment integrity documentation before treating the underlying causes as settled.

No vote, regulation, or court order was cited in the report itself. The immediate next steps for stakeholders would be to compare the alleged decline in average benefits per participant with USDA’s SNAP reporting and payment integrity metrics, including any changes in error-rate methodology, enforcement operations, retailer compliance requirements, and benefit calculations.

If USDA’s efforts continue to shift retailer behavior or reduce purchasing power through changes in average benefits, it could be reflected in retailer sales patterns and in how grocers evaluate the share of revenue linked to SNAP transactions. However, the magnitude and durability of those effects would depend on whether the reported trend in average benefits persists and whether error-related enforcement changes the program’s cash value or redemption patterns over time.