How common is snap recipient misrepresentation of their information
Executive summary
Available reporting shows measurable but limited rates of SNAP recipient misrepresentation and improper payments: the USDA and quality-control reviews count recipient fraud and errors as part of an overall improper payment rate (about 11.7% of benefits in FY2023, per one report) and specific federal claims have identified large raw counts of suspected cases when states’ data were pooled — for example, USDA statements about “double-enrolled” and deceased recipients from 29 states (claims ranging from 5,000 dead to later figures of 186,000) [1] [2]. Independent fact-checking notes the numbers and their context remain contested and that program error, state agency processes and data issues can create false positives [2].
1. How often do SNAP recipients intentionally misrepresent information?
Federal oversight treats intentional misrepresentation (eligibility fraud or “Intentional Program Violation”) as a distinct but relatively small component of improper payments; the National Protective Error Rate (NPER) and SNAP quality-control reviews measure recipient fraud alongside recipient and state errors [1]. Congress’s reporting frames many overpayments as falling into categories that include honest mistakes or state processing failures, not solely deliberate deception [1]. Exact national counts of intentional misrepresentation are not available in the provided reporting beyond aggregated improper-payment percentages [1].
2. Recent high-profile USDA counts: raw numbers and disputes
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins publicly cited large counts after a data pull from 29 states — initially “5,000 dead people” and “half a million people getting benefits two times under the same name,” with a later claim that 186,000 deceased recipients were identified — but independent coverage and fact-checkers cautioned that those headline numbers require context about matching methods, timeframes and state data limitations [2]. Snopes’s summary explains that some findings can reflect database lags, duplicate records, or differing state procedures rather than proof of deliberate fraud [2].
3. Scale put into financial terms
One mid‑2020s analysis cited by reporting estimated roughly 11.7% of SNAP benefits were paid improperly in FY2023 — translated there into about $10.5 billion — with a portion attributable to identity fraud, account takeovers, eligibility misrepresentation and trafficking [3]. That figure encompasses all improper payments (recipient errors, state errors and fraud) and should not be conflated with intentional misrepresentation alone [3] [1].
4. Where errors look like fraud: data, timing and state systems
State administrative records are heterogenous; deaths not removed promptly from state rolls, mismatched identifiers across systems and variable cross‑checking practices can produce apparent “double enrollments” or payments to deceased individuals even when no one intentionally lied [2] [1]. The congressional/CRS framing underlines that NPERs capture a mix of recipient fraud, recipient error and state agency error — underscoring the difficulty of separating willful misrepresentation from administrative noise [1].
5. Competing narratives and political context
The Trump administration has used SNAP data audits as grounds for policy changes and threats to withhold administrative funds from states that refuse to share recipient data; multiple outlets report the administration’s claims and the legal and political pushback, including experts who say there is no clear legal authority to withhold benefits and that federal officials may be overstating the findings [4] [5] [6]. Advocates and some legal scholars counter that headline claims about mass fraud are overstated or driven by an agenda to tighten eligibility and expand work requirements [5].
6. What the numbers do — and don’t — prove
Available sources show substantial counts of mismatches when states’ data are pooled, and they show nonzero levels of intentional fraud within SNAP, but they also make clear those counts do not automatically translate into proof that recipients broadly misrepresent eligibility. Congress’s quality‑control framework and independent fact checks warn that administrative error, delayed updates and clerical issues inflate raw counts and that the share of improper payments due to deliberate misrepresentation is smaller than the total improper payment rate [1] [2].
7. Bottom line for policymakers and the public
Policy choices that respond to misrepresentation risk conflating administrative imperfections with intentional fraud; public officials citing large headline counts should be required to publish matching methodologies, timeframes and the breakdown between recipient fraud, recipient error and state error so that the public and courts can assess whether proposed penalties or withholding actions are justified [2] [1] [5]. Available reporting does not provide a definitive national percentage of SNAP recipients who deliberately misrepresent information; it documents measurable improper payments and contested high‑count findings whose causes are mixed [3] [2].