The U.S. food stamp program is losing around $1 billion a month owing to alleged fraud and errors, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has warned.
The lawmaker issued the warning in a Sept. 26 press release announcing new legislation aimed at combating the alleged billions of dollars in monthly losses from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which allows low-income families with benefit cards to buy basic food items at approved grocery stores.
Known as the “Snap Back Inaccurate SNAP Payments Act,” the legislation would slash spending by nearly $1 billion a month by ensuring all errors—regardless of the amount—be counted.
The bill also directs state governments to stop handing out benefits to individuals who are not eligible, requires states to pay back what they owe, and directs states to recollect SNAP overpayments, ensuring that each household only receives exactly what they are eligible for.
Additionally, the legislation will hold states accountable for payment error rates to incentivize better management of funds, and improve the accuracy of SNAP payment error rates by requiring all errors to be reported.
Meanwhile, SNAP costs rose from $60.3 billion in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, to a record-setting $119.5 billion in 2022.
![Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) speaks at a Senate Republican news conference in the U.S. Capitol Building on March 9, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)](https://www.theepochtimes.com/_next/image?url=https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2022/03/16/Joni-Ernst-600x400.jpeg&w=1200&q=75)
States Must ‘Pay the Piper’
However, Ms. Ernst said seven states—Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Louisiana, Alaska, and Mississippi—have “intentionally manipulated” the amount of SNAP payments they were making to residents and ultimately pocketed $60 million.
The Justice Department has since settled those allegations of improper manipulation of the SNAP program with various state agencies across those seven states and recovered more than $60 million in connection with its investigation.
“Families across the country are going hungry while bureaucrats are jumping the line to gobble up SNAP dollars, either as a meal ticket to beef up state budgets or a self-serve buffet of benefits for themselves or others who do not qualify,” the senator said in Tuesday’s statement. “I’m snapping back! It’s time for states at fault to pay the piper and eat the costs of their taxpayer waste. Instead of overserving bureaucrats, let’s end the waste and set a place at the table for hungry families,” Ms. Ernst added.
The Iowa Republican noted that the majority of errors from the food stamp program are owing to “overpayments” or benefits paid to recipients who are not actually eligible to receive them.
In June, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that states had an overpayment error rate of 9.84 percent.
In 2022, there were approximately $11.2 billion in overpayments reported, however the exact number is unknown because the USDA excludes errors totaling $54 or less.
![People shop for bread at a supermarket in Monterey Park, Calif., on Oct. 19, 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)](https://www.theepochtimes.com/_next/image?url=https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2023/01/24/GettyImages-1244092440-600x344.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Benefit Fraud Cases on the Rise
In recent years, an increasing number of fraud cases relating to the food stamp program and other federal programs, particularly in the form of organized schemes run by those actually running such programs, have also been prosecuted across the United States.
Fraud and errors relating to food assistance programs are not the only problems.
The SNAP abuse is part of approximately $3 trillion in improper payments made by federal agencies since 2004, according to Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of watchdog Open the Books, which is more than the entire annual GDP of France.
“This is the definition of a dinner-table issue. Senator Ernst has identified a kind of improper payment that strikes right at the heart of an American’s life – their need to feed themselves and their families nutritious foods,” Mr. Andrzejewski said in a statement. “While we’ve demonstrated that fraud runs rampant across government, stealing right from our plates is an especially pernicious way to make your ill-gotten gains.”