When asked for details earlier this month on what cuts would be included in congressional Republicans’ upcoming tax and budget bill to target so-called waste, fraud, and abuse, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) stated, “Waste is defined as anything I can get 217 of my fellow colleagues to agree on.” As chair of the Subcommittee on Health for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Rep. Carter was talking about Medicaid, but his statement is emblematic of House Republicans’ overall approach crafting a budget reconciliation bill. House Freedom Caucus members and moderate Republicans have been debating how much to cut and from which programs, but they are aligned in the goal of using these cuts to help finance at least $4 trillion in new tax breaks that would disproportionally benefit the wealthy and powerful.
House Republicans made their priorities apparent in their recent proposal, released by the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, to enact the largest Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cut in history. The package aims to cut $290 billion (nearly 30 percent) from SNAP, largely by shifting benefit costs to states for the first time, linking this new cost-sharing formula to state error rates. The package would also expand burdensome paperwork requirements to older Americans and families with children and freeze future benefit increases that would help households adjust to rising food costs. Members of the committee have claimed that the reconciliation process would target waste, fraud, and abuse while preserving benefits for those most in need, but SNAP is not filled with wasteful spending. The proposed cuts will take food away from eligible children and families in need.
What are SNAP error rates?
SNAP payment error rates track the accuracy of state eligibility and benefit determinations, combining both rates of underpayments and overpayments. Importantly, error rates do not measure fraud, as errors are usually unintentional, and more than half are caused by clerical errors from state agencies on average. In those cases where recipients have erred, it is often because they do not know how to provide the state with necessary information due to complicated eligibility requirements.
Error rates rose during fiscal years (FY) 2022 and 2023 as states prioritized ensuring access to assistance during the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, those rates were overstated because quality control reviewers did not account for enhancements from temporary emergency allotment payments that automatically pushed benefits for all recipients to the maximum level. A new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) policy that started in FY 2022 has also led to overstated errors by decreasing the rigor with which quality control reviewers must attempt to correct certain procedural mistakes, such as a missing participant’s signature. Now, reviewers must mark the household ineligible and subsequent benefits as overpayments. In other words, some recorded errors were not true errors because they were not reflective of enacted policy and were not costing the government any money.
Some states, such as Alaska, which had the highest error rate for FY 2023 at 60.37 percent, faced additional struggles, demonstrating that state actions can create errors without any intentional fraud from SNAP participants. Alaska misinterpreted a federal policy by extending recertification periods multiple times instead of just once. When the backlog of applications piled up following a correction, Alaska reverted to extending certification periods again to process applications without cutting peoples’ benefits, causing the error rate to skyrocket. It was particularly important that state workers find a way to navigate the backlog without cutting access to assistance, considering that rural Alaska faces unusually high grocery prices due to supply chain issues.
States are already penalized for high error rates without a mandated cost-sharing policy
A major component of the Agriculture Committee’s proposal is to mandate that states begin paying for a portion of SNAP benefits for the first time, starting at 5 percent for those below a 6 percent error rate. This is already a massive new expense for states to account for, totaling tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars per year that states would have to raise in revenue or cut in program eligibility or benefits which multiple states are already warning of. Additionally, the state share would increase for those with higher error rates, topping out at 25 percent. Such mandates would be made even more painful during recessions when SNAP participation spikes as state revenue falls and could push hundreds of thousands of additional people into poverty during a recession if states reduced benefits to balance their budgets. The increased stress on state budgets would leave states with fewer resources to combat payment errors, making it even more difficult to reduce them.
The House Republican proposal would also make it more difficult for states to bring errors down by counting errors small in value that are currently exempt from the overall error rate and increasing the share of state administrative expenses that states pay for from 50 percent to 75 percent, stretching resources even thinner. As a result, the federal government would offload more benefit costs onto states as punishment for not bringing errors down.
States already face financial penalties for high error rates and are required to correct payment errors—an incentive framework that has proved effective. Iowa, for example, was issued a $1.8 million fine in 2019 for high error rates. Instead of paying the totality of the fine, USDA permits states to reinvest half the amount into administrative improvements. The other half remains at risk for repayment if high error rates continue. Iowa took the reinvestment option, but the state still had to pay a penalty since it takes time for the impacts of these improvements to appear in the data. The state then made substantial progress, even amid the pandemic, slashing its error rate from 10 percent to 5.2 percent in five years. Had a cost-sharing policy been in place that would have required Iowa to pay an increased portion of benefits—or any portion of benefits—it would have been much more difficult for it to allocate the resources necessary to drive this improvement.
Similarly, Hawaii was charged $11 million for FY 2023 for its high error rates and chose the reinvestment option, planning to launch a new computer system for more accurate eligibility determinations in 2026. The $68 million project could be derailed if Hawaii were suddenly required to start paying $182 million per year in SNAP benefits.
Paperwork requirement expansions would increase program complexity and administrative burden
The Agriculture Committee’s package also includes expansions of SNAP’s paperwork requirement that imposes a three-month time limit on benefits in a three-year period unless recipients demonstrate compliance. This could take essential food assistance away from an estimated 3 million parents with children older than age 7, plus more than 4 million children in these households; 1.4 million adults ages 55–64; and 1.6 million people living in areas with high unemployment.
Paperwork requirements have proved ineffective at increasing employment. They are also costly for states to implement and make eligibility requirements a nightmare to navigate for both administrators and applicants, creating more opportunities for error. If combined with a cost-sharing mandate tied to error rates, these proposed expansions could make it more difficult for states to keep their error rates low, creating a cycle where states are unable to afford the investments needed to reduce errors due to paying for increasing shares of SNAP benefits. No one is undeserving of food, yet administrative burdens created through a paperwork requirement expansion would put some of the nation’s most vulnerable populations at risk of going hungry.
Freezing the Thrifty Food Plan means all SNAP participants will face cuts
One component of the reconciliation package that would guarantee benefit cuts for all SNAP participants is blocking future benefit increases provided through the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP). SNAP benefits are calculated using the TFP, which determines the lowest-cost, practical grocery basket needed to meet dietary guidelines. Preventing future benefit increases will result in outdated benefits and prevent recipients from keeping pace with the rising costs associated with maintaining a healthy diet, just as it was for roughly 50 years before the 2021 update.
Preventing future benefit increases will result in outdated benefits and prevent recipients from keeping pace with the rising costs associated with maintaining a healthy diet.
The last TFP increase in 2021 benefited more than 40 million people. These recipients were not abusing the system; they were finally getting what they were owed after decades of erosion in SNAP. In fact, the 2021 update kept 2.9 million people out of poverty, including 1.3 million children, demonstrating the immediate impact that properly investing in meeting people’s basic needs can have. And even after the 2021 update, SNAP benefits remain modest, averaging roughly $2 per person per meal. Polls also continually show that the public supports increasing SNAP benefits.
Conclusion
SNAP is an efficient anti-hunger program. But House Republicans’ proposals would take what precious few benefits lower-income Americans have in order to give them to the ultrawealthy in the form of reckless tax giveaways. Rather than cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” House Republicans are cutting food assistance for people who need help feeding their families.
The author would like to thank Lily Roberts, Emily Gee, Madeline Shepherd, Bobby Kogan, Colin Seeberger, Natalie Baker, Kennedy Andara, Aurelia Glass, Sachin Shiva, Amina Khalique, Sophie Cohen, Mona Alsaidi, Christian Rodriguez, and Will Beaudouin for their valuable assistance and review.
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