By The Washington Times (Politics) | Created at 2026-07-23 22:01:19 | Updated at 2026-08-04 10:31:07
1 week ago
The majority of states are mistakenly too generous in handing out federally funded food stamps, and are now at risk of having to pay for the benefits themselves.
The Department of Agriculture calculated 41 states last year had food stamp payment error rates above 6%, exceeding the penalty threshold set in the GOP’s tax-cut measure, the One Big Beautiful Bill.
States with higher error rates will lose federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as soon as the end of 2027, leaving them on the hook for funding up to 15% of their food stamps or forcing them to slash benefits.
The new threshold is aimed at ending billions of dollars in wasteful spending and fraud in the $110 billion food stamp program.
Error rates — mostly overpayments — have significantly climbed in recent years, jumping from an average of 6.3% in 2017 to 10.6% in 2025.
Last year’s error rate represented more than $10 billion in improper food stamp payments, USDA officials said.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the data “further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP.”
The federal government funds more than 90% of the SNAP program, and the penalties are aimed at giving states a strong incentive to curb mistakes.
But advocacy groups warn states need more time to implement reforms to avoid billions of dollars in new costs. Some say the threat of looming penalties has led to a significant drop in SNAP participation among the needy.
“This is a textbook case of bad incentives,” said Dory Thrasher, senior policy analyst at the Food Research and Action Center.
Mistakes in handing out food stamps were plentiful in both red states and blue states.
The USDA’s analysis counted both underpayments and overpayments, but the vast majority of errors involved states giving out more generous benefits than recipients were eligible to receive.
Florida’s error rate in 2025 was nearly 13%, the USDA found, and nearly all of the mistakes were overpayments. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a Republican.
If not corrected, the high error rate will cost the state nearly $1 billion in lost federal food stamp funding beginning as early as October 2027. The Florida Legislature this year approved $4 million for a new AI-driven system to help determine eligibility and detect errors in the SNAP system.
Alaska’s error rate was more than 23%, followed by the District of Columbia, which had a nearly 19% error rate.
New Mexico placed third with an improper handout rate of 17%, followed by Georgia, which had an error rate of more than 15%. In every state, the mistakes were nearly all overpayments, and just a fraction involved underpayments.
Only a handful of states fell below the 6% penalty threshold: Wyoming, Wisconsin, Utah, Vermont, Kentucky, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota, which had the lowest error rate — under 2.5% — of all 50 states.
According to the USDA, fraud isn’t the main cause of SNAP payment errors.
In many cases, state agencies incorrectly calculate a household’s expenses, which impacts the amount of food stamps a family receives. In other cases, recipients fail to inform the states about changes to their income that may lower the benefits they receive.
In a symposium sponsored by the National Governors Association, the non-profit government advocacy group U.S. Digital Response analyzed the cause of error rates in three states. The organization found most of the payment errors stemmed from hard-to-use systems, overuse of bureaucratic jargon and acronyms that left SNAP recipients confused about what they were required to report, poorly communicated policy changes and caseworker overload.
States that have worked to improve the accuracy of their SNAP payment systems have seen success in reducing mistakes. New Jersey experienced a big decline, dropping from a 14.3% error rate in 2024 to under 6.9% last year, after implementing new quality control protocols.
The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated this week that food stamp participation has significantly dropped since the enactment of the GOP tax cut law last year. The law imposed stricter work requirements and other changes, such as banning food stamps for immigrants living in the U.S. legally.
The CBBP estimated more than 4.5 million people stopped receiving SNAP benefits between July 2025 and April 2026. Steep drops were seen in Arizona, where SNAP participation fell by 55% and in Louisiana, where it fell by 21%. Florida experienced a 19% drop in SNAP participation.
The organization said the new limitation and requirements for food stamps are both harsh and ineffective.
“It’s very unlikely that reduced need is driving the decline in SNAP participation,” the CBBP concluded, noting the nation’s relatively flat unemployment rate.
Now states are racing to curb food stamp payment errors or face massive budget shortfalls due to loss of federal SNAP dollars.
The new law will penalize states based on the percentage of food stamp payment errors.
States will have to pick up 5% of the cost of food stamps for error rates of 6% to 8% and will have to cover 10% for error rates between 8% and 10%.
Error rates higher than 10% — which were found in 21 states last year — will result in a 15% penalty. States with the worst error rates may be eligible for grace period that could put off the penalties until 2030.
While most of the errors in SNAP payments aren’t tied to outright fraud, a separate analysis found some eye-popping examples of food stamp abuse earlier this year.
Researchers at the Foundation for Government Accountability found that more than 14,000 people receiving benefits in a single, unidentified state were driving Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and other luxury vehicles. Recipients included a professional football player and a “celebrity barber.”
