House GOP Unveils Food Stamp Overhaul, Penalizes States For High Error Rates

House Republicans unveiled a new spending plan yesterday that would significantly restructure the food stamp program by linking federal funding to each state’s payment error rate.

States with higher payment error rates would receive less in federal funds under the plan, incentivizing them to root out waste, fraud and abuse. The House Agriculture Committee included the proposal in its draft bill which is expected to be included in the legislative package President Donald Trump has dubbed his “one big, beautiful bill.”

Food stamp benefits are paid for entirely by the federal government as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but administered individually by each state. States have discretion to set their own standards on more than 20 different policies related to food stamp eligibility, fraud and enforcement.

The House GOP’s plan would require states to cover at least 5% of their food stamp expenditures, with the federal government continuing to fund the rest, according to the bill’s text. However, states with an error rate above 10% would be responsible for covering 25% of the benefits they provide.

Twenty-eight states exceeded the 10% error threshold, and some far surpassed it, according to USDA statistics from fiscal year 2023, the most recent year from which error rate data is publicly available.

Alaska’s error rate stands at a staggering 60%, meaning that a majority of its food stamp budget is lost to waste, fraud, or administrative mistakes. New Jersey misallocates more than one-third of its food stamp benefits, while South Carolina’s error rate exceeds 20%.

The financial impact of the proposed changes would be substantial.

California, for instance, has a 13.4% error rate. The state would have to fund 25% of its annual $15 billion food stamp costs — more than $3 billion this year alone, under the proposed plan.

New York’s error rate is 12.68% percent, meaning it would be on the hook for 25% of the state’s more than $8 billion in food stamp spending, approximately $2 billion.

Wisconsin, for example, provides more than $1.7 billion in food stamp benefits, but has a payment error rate of 5.15%. A 5% funding requirement would put the Badger State on the hook for more than $100 million.

Food stamp spending doubled in the United States between 2019 and 2023, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This increase came as pandemic policies inflated benefits, the libertarian Cato Institute reported.  The program has grown by more than $100 billion overall since 2001, adjusted for inflation, according to a report from the conservative Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) which cited federal government data. 

The proposed changes come as Congress is trying to cut $1 trillion in overall federal spending. Republicans have proposed a number of solutions, including cracking down on non-citizens who use food stamps and strengthening work requirements. 

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Glenn Thompson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a recent interview that if states want to continue to administer the program, they will need to pay for some of it too.

“If [states] want skin in the game, if they want to be able to control and manipulate the requirements that we set … they need to be paying part of the bill,” he told Politico.