How much SNAP fraud exists
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Executive summary
Measured one way, improper SNAP payments totaled roughly 10–12% of benefits in recent years — about $10–11 billion in FY2023 and a 10.93% rate in FY2024 — but that figure mixes honest errors, agency mistakes and intentional fraud, so the true share that is deliberate criminal activity is much smaller and debated [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, recent USDA reporting and state submissions have shown sharp, headline‑grabbing spikes in “stolen” EBT transactions — tens to low hundreds of millions of dollars in discrete quarters — driven largely by electronic theft and reporting changes rather than proof of mass recipient fraud [4] [5] [6].
1. What the headline numbers actually measure
Congressional and USDA integrity systems report “improper payments,” a broad category that includes recipient fraud, recipient error, and state agency error; the National Payment Error Rate (NPER) is the official yardstick, not a direct fraud count [3] [1]. For example, GAO noted USDA’s FY2023 estimate that roughly 11.7% of SNAP benefits — about $10.5 billion — were improper, and FNS published a 10.93% national payment error rate for FY2024, explicitly cautioning that rate is not a measure of program fraud [1] [2].
2. Fraud versus error: the crucial distinction
Multiple authoritative sources warn that treating the improper‑payment percentage as proof of widespread fraud conflates distinct problems; trafficking and intentional program violations are a subset, while much of the NPER reflects eligibility and administrative errors [3] [2]. USDA and FNS materials also emphasize that over 98% of recipients are eligible and that payment accuracy has improved — FNS cites a 95.64% payment‑accuracy benchmark even as it pursues fraud controls [7].
3. Recent spikes in EBT theft and “stolen benefits” reporting
Separate from NPER-style improper payments, USDA data and media reporting in 2024–2025 documented surges in fraudulent EBT transactions and card thefts: counts of fraudulent transactions rose by large percentages quarter to quarter, and federal and state reports described hundreds of thousands of fraudulent transactions and tens of millions of dollars reported as “stolen” in particular quarters (for instance, reporting more than $102 million in one FY2025 quarter and reporting jumps from ~444,553 to 691,604 fraudulent transactions between quarters) [4] [5] [8]. State‑level reporting has produced large variance too, with some states reporting sudden jumps in amounts claimed stolen in certain reporting periods [6].
4. Why totals vary so widely across outlets and studies
Different datasets are counting different things: Newsweek and other outlets focused on consumer claims of benefit theft and state‑reported incidents, LexisNexis industry studies measure fraud attack rates and agency costs, and GAO/FNS report on improper payments including innocent mistakes [8] [9] [1]. Industry vendors like LexisNexis find that fraud attempts and administrative costs per dollar lost can be high and rising in digital channels, while federal reports stress that many payments flagged as improper are not proven fraud [10] [9] [1].
5. Political uses, missing data, and caveats
USDA leadership and some policymakers have used the state submissions to argue for major rule changes, but journalists and analysts note gaps in the underlying data and warn that selective presentation can overstate intentional wrongdoing; NPR specifically reported that USDA had not released the underlying datasets that would let outside analysts verify claims of “massive fraud” [11]. Snopes and other fact‑checks highlight that large improper‑payment totals do not directly corroborate broad claims about dead or double‑enrolled beneficiaries without transparent state‑level evidence [12].
6. Bottom line: how much SNAP fraud exists now — and what’s unknown
Solid, public federal measures show improper SNAP payments of about 10–12% of outlays (roughly $10–11 billion in FY23), but that is not a direct measure of intentional fraud; documented criminal trafficking and EBT thefts are a much smaller slice of that total though they have surged in some quarters and states and can impose concentrated harms [1] [2] [5]. The exact dollar share that is deliberate fraud versus error or agency miscalculation cannot be precisely determined from publicly released national data because datasets differ in scope and some recent USDA assertions lack the underlying state‑level data needed for independent verification [3] [11].