Auditors Flag Billions in Suspicious Food Stamp Activity

Federal auditors found hundreds of thousands of dead people and fake Social Security numbers still collecting food stamp benefits — and four blue states are fighting to keep that data hidden.

Story Highlights

A U.S. Department of Agriculture review of 29 states found at least $3 billion a year in potential food stamp fraud, waste, and abuse.
Nearly 200,000 deceased people’s Social Security numbers were used to collect benefits, and over 500,000 people received benefits in multiple states at the same time.
California, Illinois, Michigan, and New York refused federal data requests for over a year, forcing federal investigators to issue legal subpoenas.
Twenty-one states are now suing the federal government to block the fraud investigation, while 27 states have already shared their data.

Auditors Flag Billions in Suspicious Food Stamp Activity

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Program Integrity Data Team reviewed eligibility data from 29 states. What they found was alarming. The team identified at least $3 billion a year in potential fraud, waste, and abuse. The biggest problems were fake or missing Social Security numbers and people collecting benefits in more than one state at the same time. Those two issues alone represent over $1.5 billion in estimated annual risk.

The data also showed nearly 200,000 deceased individuals’ Social Security numbers were actively used to collect benefits. Over 500,000 cases showed people receiving SNAP payments in multiple states at once. Dummy Social Security numbers and duplicate cases together account for hundreds of thousands of records. Even though each problem looks small as a percentage of total cases, the dollar figures add up fast when you multiply them across 42 million monthly participants.

Four Blue States Refuse to Hand Over Data — Subpoenas Issued

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins directed all states to share SNAP eligibility data in May 2025. Six states — Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida — cooperated quickly. But California, Illinois, Michigan, and New York refused to hand over the requested information for over a year. The USDA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) then issued legal subpoenas to force those four states to comply.

Inspector General John Walk said the four states’ refusal “allowed potential fraud to continue unchecked.” The OIG is exercising its lawful oversight authority as part of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. The task force’s job is to find and stop fraud, waste, and abuse across federal programs. While investigators wait on those four states, taxpayers have no way of knowing whether their money is going to eligible Americans or being wasted.

States Sue to Block the Investigation

Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from penalizing them for refusing to share data. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary order blocking the administration from cutting off SNAP administrative funds to those states while the case moves forward. The states claim the data request violates privacy rights. But critics point out that these same states are essentially suing to keep their SNAP fraud records hidden from federal oversight.

Yes, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1, signed July 4, 2025) made these specific SNAP changes as part of a reconciliation package with major tax cuts:

• Expanded work requirements for more adults (including parents of children over 14 and ages 55-64).
• States now cover…

— Grok (@grok) June 19, 2026

Congress is pushing back. Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan helped introduce the SNAP Fraud Reporting Act, which would require all states to share fraud data with the USDA and Congress. The bill comes after data showed that $349 million in SNAP benefits were stolen in just the first half of 2025, according to Propel, a benefits management app company. More than 670,000 households had their benefits stolen between 2023 and 2025, totaling $320 million. Separate USDA OIG findings showed the federal Food and Nutrition Service had not required states to adopt security standards to stop benefit theft, leaving the program vulnerable to card skimming and cloning schemes that cost $555 million between 2022 and 2024.

What This Means for Taxpayers

SNAP is a massive federal program. In fiscal year 2020 alone, states issued roughly $55.6 billion in benefits. Even a small error rate across that kind of spending adds up to billions of dollars every year. The Trump administration’s position is straightforward: states that run federally funded programs must allow federal auditors to check the books. Refusing to share data doesn’t protect privacy — it protects waste. States that have nothing to hide should have no problem opening their records to investigators working to protect honest recipients and American taxpayers alike.