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June 29, 2026 / 1:21 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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The Trump administration says the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, is losing billions of dollars because of payment errors it characterizes as fraud, waste and abuse. But anti-hunger advocates say that description is misleading, and could threaten food assistance for millions of low-income families.The Department of Agriculture on June 24 said that the food-stamp program's payment error rate was 10.6% for fiscal year 2025 — almost double the 6% threshold established as acceptable under the Republicans' 2025 "big, beautiful bill act" (OBBBA). The error rate last year amounts to more than $10 billion in improper SNAP payments across the U.S., the agency said. SNAP provided $95.7 billion in benefits to American families during fiscal year 2025, meaning that payment errors accounted for roughly one-tenth of the program's spending.Fraud or a mistake?Conflicting views on the prevalence of fraud in food stamps centers on what the SNAP payment error rate actually measures. Payment errors occur whenever households receive too much or too little in benefits, regardless of whether anyone intentionally broke the rules, and experts say such over- and under-payments are usually unintentional.Fraud, by contrast, generally involves deliberate deception, such as trafficking benefits for cash or using stolen EBT card information.The Trump administration has cited the payment error rate as evidence of waste in the program. The metric does not capture many of the most common forms of SNAP fraud, such as EBT card skimming or recipients illegally selling benefits for cash, according to the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), which represents state and local human services agencies.A 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office found that SNAP payment errors tend to stem from over- or under-payment issues, while describing food-stamp fraud as a separate, if related, issue.
