WASHINGTON, June 14 -- When Republicans wrote new work requirements into the food-stamp program last year, they sold them as a ladder back to employment. A year on, with the cuts actually taking effect, the results are in, and they describe something closer to a purge. At least 3.5 million Americans have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since Trump's Big Beautiful Bill became law, and the best available research finds that the requirements driving those losses do not push people into work. They just take away the food.

The scale is already clear in the data. As CNBC reported, more than 3.5 million beneficiaries lost SNAP between July and February as the law's provisions set in, with states bracing for further ...