PediatricDigest

By Marion Nestle

August 18 2026

A national scandal: millions of U.S. workers rely on Medicaid and SNAP

The Government Accountability Office reports: Federal Social Safety Net Programs: Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAP.

To learn more about the working adults who used these programs in 2024, we analyzed employment data from 11 states and Census data.

We found:

About two-thirds worked full time

Most worked for private sector employers

Workers were largely in transportation, restaurants and food prep, and retail sales jobs

Some employers in selected states had thousands of beneficiaries on their payrolls

This is one of the findings:

According to GAO’s analysis of state-level data for September 2025, the employers with the most nondisabled, nonelderly Medicaid enrollees or SNAP beneficiaries varied across the 11 states that provided data. However, 46 companies (about one-third of the total companies across all 11 states) were among the top 25 employers of Medicaid enrollees or SNAP beneficiaries in at least two states. Seventeen of these 46 companies were among the 50 largest Fortune 500 companies by number of employees.

Here is an example of some actual data:

Comment

What this report tells us is that the richest food companies in the United States are paying such low wages that their employees must rely on government assistance to get by. This means that we taxpayers are subsidizing rich corporations and enabling them to continue to profit at the expense of their workers. I didn’t see much written about this report when it appeared. It deserves wide circulation.

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