USDA overpaid 10% of food stamp benefits in 2022


The following is from The Washington Times.

The food stamp program was slammed with fraud and bungling during the pandemic, leading to the highest rate of “improper payments” on record last year, according to government data.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says nearly 10% of payments in 2022 were “overpayments,” meaning someone received more than they deserved or collected money when they shouldn’t have been receiving any payment at all. Nearly 2% more were underpayments.

The first evaluation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests a massive amount of waste in a program that paid out $114 billion last year.

The data also shows a severe deterioration from before the pandemic, when the government recorded a total improper payment rate — overpayments and underpayments combined — of 7.4% in 2019 and 6.8% in 2018.

The Biden administration defended the performance and insisted that fraud didn’t account for all the bad payments, though it acknowledged lingering “challenges” from the pandemic that affected operations.

“Payment errors are largely due to unintentional mistakes by either the state agency or a household that result in a state determining an applicant is eligible when they are not or incorrectly calculating a participant’s benefit amount,” the USDA said.

Officials said they are taking steps, including improving communication with states and threatening penalties for those that don’t lower their bad-payment rates.

Read more here.

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5 thoughts on “USDA overpaid 10% of food stamp benefits in 2022”

  1. This article and Food ? Sharyl I got a recipe for you to try but you’ll need one of those cheap round do it yourself Home Hamburger patty presses ? Instead of making 1/4 pound hamburger patties to put on Grill, mix in ingredients for new 1/4 pound pressed Meatloaf recipe patties to flip on Grill topped with a slice of Cheddar cheese and catchup.. Don’t that make your mouth water served with 3 Cheese Marconi and cheese, and Cole slaw and ice cold beer ?? Something new to flip on your Grill ? LOL

  2. Over bloated and incompetent federal government.
    Many believe they can get away with stealing taxpayer’s money both in and out of the federal kleptocracy.

  3. Did I get it right. The closing paragraph implies that the USDA is blaming the states for doing their job poorly. So what states are they?

  4. Why do few journalists want to report on the real amount of fraud in SNAP accurately? Instead, they all too often rely on and accept the government’s figures, and as a result, the stories are little more than a big yawn.

    Last year, SNAP fraud was over $15 Billion dollars, but the USDA claims less than .01 percent. Think about that for a minute. Credit card companies that are extremely proactive regarding fraud have reduced theirs to around 3% over the past decade, and many consider that an acceptable loss.

    Knowing that, does anyone believe that the USDA, utilizing an EBT card as secure as a hotel room key, with little program integrity, could keep afraid at .01%…seriously?

    This is taxpayer money, and until people understand how mismanaged and fraud-ridden SNAP is, the theft will continue while the taxpayer pays the piper.

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