Dive Brief:
- A majority of states had SNAP payment error rates during fiscal 2025 that could make them liable to cover a percentage of the cost of benefits provided to their residents starting next October, according to data released Wednesday by the USDA.
- All but 10 states had error rates over 6%, the congressionally mandated threshold that states must stay under to avoid having to absorb a share of the nutrition assistance program’s expenses.
- The federal government is pressing ahead with changes to SNAP eligibility rules and funding that could significantly impact sales in the grocery industry.
Dive Insight:
While overall payment errors were down in fiscal 2025 compared with the previous year, they still represent significant waste and need to be addressed, the USDA said. The 50 states and Washington, D.C., had an overall error rate in 2025 of 10.62%, reflecting over $10 billion in waste, according to the agency.
“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement. “USDA has taken historic action to help interested states curb SNAP waste, and I hope other states, regardless of political leadership, prioritize needy families and the American taxpayer over politics.”
The federal government spent $102 billion on SNAP in fiscal 2025, representing about 1.4% of federal spending during the year, which ended Sept. 30, 2025.
The USDA counts both over- and underpayments of SNAP benefits when calculating a state’s error rate.
When the federal government’s fiscal 2028 starts next October, states can choose to use either their fiscal 2025 or fiscal 2026 error rates to determine if they must contribute to SNAP costs, under rules laid out in the tax and spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last July.
States with SNAP payment error rates over 6% will need to pay at least 5% of the cost of benefits for their beneficiaries beginning in fiscal 2028, which begins Oct. 1, 2027. States with an error rate between 8% and 10% will be on the hook for 10% of the program costs, and those whose rate is 10% or higher will have to cover 15%.
Due to a carve-out in the law, the states with the highest error rates that meet certain requirements will get additional time to start contributing to SNAP program costs.
In addition, states with an error rate of 6% or higher are required to file a plan with USDA laying out how they will address the reason for the errors, according to the agency. Some states might also face a separate financial penalty, the agency said.
While SNAP payment error rates are frequently used as an indicator of how well a state manages SNAP benefit distribution, the statistics can provide an inaccurate picture of the program’s performance, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit group that focuses on poverty-related hunger. Error rates do not take into account factors such as barriers to participation, case-processing speed or program abuse that are also gauges of SNAP effectiveness, the organization said.
