According to recently released government data, exactly 36,029,506 Americans (18,230,968 households) are currently enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. Although it may seem as though a rather large number of Americans receive government subsidies for their groceries, the current SNAP figure should be celebrated.

Why? Because in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration, 42,972,692 Americans (21,232,456 households) received SNAP. That’s a drop of roughly 7 million people and 4 million households.