Annie Lowrey comes into focus here because Shelby County lost 17,905 SNAP participants between July 2025 and July 2026, a drop that leaves the county with 135,730 people receiving benefits. Tennessee also lost 87,275 participants over the same span, and advocates are describing the statewide slide as a crisis.
Shelby County SNAP losses
Shelby County’s participation fell 11.7 percent, from 153,635 people in July 2025 to 135,730 in July 2026. Monthly benefits there fell from $33.8 million to $29.7 million, a drop of $4.1 million in one year.
That county still had the largest SNAP caseload in Tennessee, even after the decline. Its caseloads fell from 72,829 to 65,222, which kept the loss from looking like a small administrative dip and made it part of a much wider pattern across the state.
Riles and Tennessee counties
During a Tennessee Justice Center webinar titled Plummeting SNAP Participation: Crisis in Tennessee, Crys Riles said expanded work requirements, eligibility changes, paperwork problems and agency errors were causing people to lose SNAP. She added, “These are all ways that we’ve identified that are causing people to lose their SNAP, even if they are eligible” and “Paperwork is always the number one that we hear from people.”
Every Tennessee county lost SNAP participants from July 2025 to July 2026. Statewide participation fell 12.5 percent, from 696,791 people to 609,516, while Shelby County and Davidson County remained far apart even though Shelby County’s enrollment was more than double Davidson County’s over the last year.
Food banks under pressure
Tammy Deiter said Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee has seen a 51-percent rise in people visiting its food banks since January 2025, and she said, “It’s almost an acceptance now that this is kind of how things are, and it’s just more difficult to make the dollar stretch — a more sustained, continuing new reality that we’re facing.” Laura Eckersley said Inspiritus’s North Nashville pantry has seen twice as many people over the last year, now serves an average of 1,450 people monthly, and has pushed food spending from about $1,500 to $2,500 per week last year to about $6,000 a week now.
Emmalyn Troupe, a community health coordinator at River Valley Health in Knoxville, said, “I’ve heard of parents skipping meals so their kids can eat,” and she also said, “I’ve heard of people skipping meals so they can afford gas to go to work.”
The next change comes beginning October 1, when Tennessee’s share of a cost change starts under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The federal government currently pays the full cost of SNAP benefits, while Tennessee and Washington split SNAP administrative expenses evenly; after that date, the state’s side of the administrative burden shifts, and the participation numbers already show how many families are being pushed toward food banks before that change arrives.
