Federal Data Shows Massachusetts Faces up to $300 Million in Annual SNAP Penalties Due to Improper Payments
The Fiscal Alliance Foundation today released a new study examining Massachusetts' Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending and how the Commonwealth compares to other New England states using newly released federal data.
On June 24th, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released updated SNAP payment accuracy data for all 50 states. According to the Foundation's analysis, Massachusetts continues to rank as an outlier, posting both the highest SNAP enrollment and expenditures per capita and the highest SNAP payment error rate in New England.
The study also finds that Massachusetts taxpayers now face a potential federal SNAP cost-sharing liability of up to $300 million annually, or approximately $90 per Massachusetts taxpaying household each year.
According to the study, the state's 12.49 percent SNAP error rate means that more than $1 out of every $10 spent through the program is classified as an improper payment, placing Massachusetts among the states with the highest error rates in the nation.
The report argues that Governor Maura Healey's administration has failed to correct the problem despite repeated warnings. According to the Foundation, the Healey administration's response has been to deny the severity of the issue, shift blame to the federal government, and hire more staff to manage a broken system.
Even last week, the Healey administration issued new chip enabled SNAP debit cards, thinking this will do much to combat error rates and fraud. It won’t.
The study was authored by Fiscal Alliance Foundation Visiting Policy Analyst Hayden Dublois, and is the Foundation's second welfare policy report released this year. In April, the Foundation published a comprehensive analysis of major welfare spending in Massachusetts.
Earlier today, we held a press conference to release the new data from our study. Here are some quotes from today’s press conference.
“Massachusetts taxpayers are about to be penalized because of Massachusetts state government's failure to properly administer the SNAP program," said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. "When state government fails to prioritize welfare spending; waste, errors, and fraud become more common. Taxpayers are ultimately left paying the price. Every taxpaying Massachusetts household could soon be paying roughly $90 a year in penalties until meaningful SNAP reforms are implemented at the state level."
"Massachusetts did not become the worst-performing state in New England by accident," Craney continued. "It became the worst because elected officials have failed to hold themselves and the agencies they oversee accountable. To put this into perspective, neighboring New Hampshire spends almost one quarter as much per capita on SNAP while avoiding the level of improper payments seen in Massachusetts.”
"If these findings do not warrant a complete overhaul of the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, it's hard to imagine what would," Craney added. "The current approach is clearly not working. The agency needs new leadership committed to restoring accountability, improving program integrity, and protecting taxpayers. Massachusetts families should not be forced to pay for the consequences of Massachusetts state government's continued failure to address this welfare spending."
"When it comes to SNAP, Massachusetts is an outlier in all the wrong ways," said Hayden Dublois, Visiting Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. “From bloated program enrollment to sky-high error rates, the Bay State has the direst SNAP outcomes in the region. Let’s be clear: these harsh realities are the direct result of poor policy choices. Now more than ever, Governor Healey and lawmakers need to accept fiscal reality and finally reform Massachusetts’s SNAP program.”
The full study, "SNAP in Massachusetts: How the food stamp program is failing Bay State taxpayers," is available online here, or as a PDF here. Please make sure to share our study by forwarding this email and posting the link to the study to your social media pages.