Belsito, Dublois: Mass. welfare programs on collision course with reality

$30 billion.

That’s roughly how much Massachusetts spends per year in state and federal tax dollars on welfare programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and housing assistance.

What does the state have to show for that massive investment?

Twice as many residents dependent on TANF than the national average. The highest SNAP payment error rate in the region, almost double that of New Hampshire. Nearly $1 in every $4 budgetary expenditure going to Medicaid, and roughly $1 billion in spending on emergency shelters in the last fiscal year alone.

These aren’t metrics to be proud of. They’re not only a sign of failed policies of the past, but also a warning of what is to come.

A recent report released by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation outlines this harsh reality. It shows that Massachusetts’ welfare programs are among the most extensive in the country, with minimal work participation rates, bloated caseloads, and sky-high expenditures. Consider that in the SNAP program alone, enrollment has ballooned by nearly 40% over the past decade, a trend that is simply unsustainable. Meanwhile, most able-bodied adults on SNAP don’t work at all, and the same is true for Medicaid.

There also appear to be several key drivers of increased welfare enrollment and spending in Massachusetts. According to Medicaid Budget and Expenditure System (MBES) Financial Management reports, emergency Medicaid spending on illegal and inadmissible migrants in Massachusetts went from just over $50 million in 2015 to more than $200 million in 2024, an astonishing 300% spike. With generous shelter and assistance policies, the state is seeing the costs come to fruition. This should severely concern every Massachusetts taxpayer.

However, what’s perhaps most shocking is the sheer amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in Massachusetts’ welfare programs. For example, 14.1% of SNAP expenditures in the most recent fiscal year were made in error. From 2022 to 2024 alone, more than $1 billion was improperly spent in the Massachusetts SNAP program. If anything, that likely undercounts the commonwealth’s true error rate, since it excludes retailer trafficking schemes, low-cost errors, and other instances of fraud.

As a result of these high error rates, Massachusetts taxpayers will now be on the hook for a sizable share of the program’s costs in the form of federal penalties. Yet the Healey administration’s response has been to downplay the crisis rather than confront it head on. They claim that less than 1% of the Massachusetts caseload was found to have committed fraud, ignoring the tens of millions of erroneous payments attributable to incorrect information provided by applicants, failures of state bureaucrats to verify eligibility criteria, and more. In fact, a recent SNAP whistleblower in Massachusetts claimed that welfare caseworkers are being “discouraged from asking even the most basic and expected questions to verify identity,” a shocking revelation.

The Healey administration’s principal policy response has been spending more on new hires, which will do nothing to combat the actual problem. And it’s not just limited to SNAP. For example, the governor has touted a decrease in emergency shelter program spending in her latest budget proposal, but it includes a 43.6% increase to the “HomeBASE” program, the state’s primary homelessness program, in a single year. These are expenditures that Massachusetts taxpayers simply cannot afford.

Instead of doubling down on failed policies by throwing good money after bad, policymakers should look at the root causes of Massachusetts’ anti-work, pro-dependency, high-error rate welfare system. That means adopting reforms to cross-check welfare applicants’ data more frequently with reliable datasets, banning the ability of enrollees to “self-attest” to key eligibility criteria without state verification, imposing asset limits so that millionaires (yes, millionaires) aren’t eligible for certain welfare programs, and more.

Without change, Massachusetts taxpayers will continue to be forced to finance programs that promote dependency over self-sufficiency and incur massive federal penalties for avoidable errors at the expense of other needs like local aid to cities and towns. State spending has exploded by $20 billion since 2018, far exceeding inflation and household incomes. Now more than ever, Massachusetts taxpayers need their state leaders to prioritize them and their interests instead of ignoring the problem altogether.

Laurie Belsito is Policy Director for the Fiscal Alliance Foundation.