Concerns have been raised over the administration of benefits, notably the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as remarks suggest that the program may be in danger once President-elect Trump becomes office.
In the upcoming year, billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of Space X and Tesla, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the founder of the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences and a former Republican candidate, will lead a new advisory body called the Department for Government Efficiency, or DOGE. They claim the DOGE will “improve efficiency” by eliminating waste in various government programs and agencies. SNAP, a state-level program financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is one of the targeted programs.
Data from Ramaswamy shows that $1 billion is “wasted *every month* on ineligible SNAP benefits” due to overpayments and scammers taking advantage of recipients. SNAP helps low- and no-income households in the United States pay for necessities like food. “Overpayments occur when states allow recipients to continue receiving benefits despite incomes that should disqualify them,” he said, as reported by Newsweek. In other cases, scammers obtain advantages from several states because of a lack of cooperation. Every year, billions of dollars would be saved if SNAP fraud and waste were eliminated. This is not a political issue, or at least it shouldn’t be.
Issues with the SNAP Program:
The program has been the target of extensive fraud in recent years, with several issues arising with the electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards in particular. However, the data presented was not correctly attributed, so we are unsure of the source.
Since these EBT cards function like ordinary debit or credit cards, they are vulnerable to frauds like cloning, phishing, and skimming, which affects bank cards. These cards are loaded with money each month for use in participating retailers and online.
Over 810,000 fraud incidents have been reported to USDA since Q2 2023, and stolen benefits totaling $150,646,972 have been replaced. In fiscal year 2023, the national overpayment rate was 10.03%, and the underpayment rate was 1.64%. The error rate varies significantly by state, with South Dakota having the lowest percentage at 3.27% and Alaska having the highest at 60.37%.
Concerned individuals, local lawmakers, and SNAP officials have all called for “urgent state actions” to address the issue, which has been ongoing for some time. Increased punishments for fraudsters have also been proposed; however, as the program is state-run, sanctions differ significantly from one state to the next, even if the money is federal.
Furthermore, the government agency stated in a news statement in June 2024 that not all issues are caused by fraud. Most payment errors are caused by inadvertent errors made by the household or the state agency that compromise the precise calculation of eligibility or benefit amounts.
Additionally, even if non-compliance can result in penalties, errors still lead to minimal action being taken to label them fraudulent.
Other DOGE Purposes:
The new advisory cabinet will try to improve fraud prevention measures for other government assistance programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, which are not known for their fraudulent claims but which the new members seem to find wasteful, in addition to SNAP benefits.
The good news is that, in Ramaswamy’s opinion, significant, pervasive cuts are unlikely since they are “a policy decision that belongs to the voters” and their congressional representatives. This implies that Americans could get a little reprieve before these programs are eliminated since corporate standards judge them wholly ineffective.
