Overview
- USDA published FY2025 payment error rates on Wednesday showing a 10.62% national rate that equals roughly $10.1 billion in improper SNAP payments measured as overpayments and underpayments.
- Under H.R. 1, states with error rates at or above 6% must submit Corrective Action Plans to USDA and could be required to cover 5%, 10% or 15% of benefit costs beginning Oct. 1, 2027, with states allowed to use either their FY2025 or FY2026 rate to calculate their share.
- States with error rates of at least 13.34% receive a statutory delay in cost-sharing until at least FY2029, a provision that applies to jurisdictions such as Alaska, which reported the highest rate at over 23%.
- The new data exposes wide state variation and fiscal risk: several high-error states face potential bills in the hundreds of millions of dollars and are already weighing staff increases, narrower eligibility, or other budget shifts to avoid penalties.
- Politics and oversight have escalated as some outlets highlighted that many high-error states have Democratic governors while the House Oversight Subcommittee has opened investigations and sent letters to several governors about refusing to provide SNAP data to USDA.