Checking in on the Oklahoma economy

As part of our Economic Pulse series, “Marketplace Morning Report” checks in with journalists from local public media outlets across the country to hear about the economic stories they’re following in their communities and states.

This week, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Kimberly Adams spoke with Anna Pope, a multimedia journalist covering agriculture and rural affairs for Oklahoma’s KOSU and Harvest Public Media.

She came on the program to discuss how SNAP enrollment decline is showing up in the Oklahoma economy and how a drought has impacted the state’s agriculture industry. The following is an edited transcript of Kimberly and Anna’s conversation.

Kimberly Adams: So, let's talk SNAP enrollment, which has been falling around the country, but it's hitting Oklahoma particularly hard. What are some of the numbers you're seeing?

Anna Pope: Yeah. So, since July 2025 to July 2026, we've seen about a 22.5% decrease in SNAP shoppers in the state, and so that's roughly about 154,000 Oklahomans falling off the program.

Adams: And why are they falling off the program?

Pope: Well, there's a number of things that have happened in the SNAP program since the Trump administration took office again; a lot of changes on a state and federal level. You know, we've seen through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, namely that Congress has expanded work requirements for participants, scrapped the SNAP education program, cut off eligibility for certain legal immigrants, and shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative and benefit costs to states. So, all of these things are kind of happening all at once.

Adams: Do you have any sense yet of the impact that those changes, especially people falling off of SNAP, is having for the Oklahoma economy?

Pope: Yeah. So, because of how many people have fallen off the program and SNAP, a lot of people who haven't had problems recertifying before are having problems, and so when you have less participants in the program, that means there's less dollars being spent on a local level, right? So, I went to a rural area in north Oklahoma — Pond Creek, and I spoke to a local grocer there, and they've seen about a 90% drop in SNAP sales. And that doesn't just impact their grocery store. That's also a local economy because what we know about SNAP is that it's a multiplier, right? Figures show about every dollar spent in a local economy; it's probably about $1.50 returning to that local economy.

Adams: You also visited several food banks that are helping to feed people who've lost their benefits. What did you see there?

Pope: One of the places I visited to learn more about what food insecurity has looked like in Oklahoma communities as these changes have unfolded was at the Lawton Food Bank, and there I met Alex Minter McCann. She's the executive director of the Lawton Food Bank, and she has seen more demand for these services.

Alex Minter McCann: The biggest thing that we are trying to project and prepare for is just how many of our clients that receive SNAP funds currently are going to be coming to the food bank needing additional food than what they're currently getting right now.

Pope: So, they're trying to predict how many people will need this service as they fall off this program, but then also how many people will just be seeking the service merely because they're facing more costs at the grocery store.

Adams: I want to switch gears to a bit of a different topic. Oklahoma experienced a drought this summer and early fall. How has that impacted the agricultural sector, particularly cattle production?

Pope: Sure. So, when there's less rain overall, there's less moisture in the ground, and then there's less grass for cattle, right? And so, producers had to roll out hay and spend money on that hay earlier than expected. And then also, there's less water in ponds, or ponds have gone dry, and so that means producers are having to haul water out to fields. And that's very work-intensive, and it's an expense as well for producers. And so, a lot of people have been, you know, maybe looking at the situation and just anecdotally, whenever I've talked to producers, some of them have been selling their cows as they've gone through this process.

Adams: Did the federal or state government step in at all to help folks through the drought?

Pope: Yes, we do have some emergency drought funds here in the state, and people can apply for them. But what we know from droughts in general is, while every bit of assistance is helpful, droughts also, depending on the situation, can cost billions of dollars in the agriculture industry. And we don't have those figures just yet. The lasting impacts kind of remain to be seen, because it just takes a while to work through the system to work through everything.

Adams: Back in August, President Trump announced a deal that was supposed to temporarily allow more beef to enter the U.S. as a way to lower beef prices in particular. How did the cattlemen in Oklahoma react to that news?

Pope: They didn't like it, and so a lot of people in the state really view beef as the one bright spot in the agriculture economy, right? And so, they don't really want to see that messed with. This plan that the Trump administration announced earlier — some people wanted more details on it. You know, where would this beef be coming from? Could we get that many tons of beef in that set amount of time? But yeah, that was the initial reaction, and we're still kind of seeing that play out right now.

Adams: You've also reported on how ICE activity is causing disruptions to the beef supply chain. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Pope: So, this fall, a lot of the cattlemen in my region — Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas — sent out a press release earlier talking about this situation that we saw a lot of ICE raids in southwestern Kansas, where there's a lot of meatpacking plants and processing plants. And so, what they say is that this basically has caused choke points along the supply chain, and that translates to millions of dollars in revenue lost and just more delays on an already pretty tight beef supply.