I recently had the good fortune to meet a woman whose story is all too familiar in today’s America. She was working part-time at a hotel gift shop for modest wages and limited benefits. She wanted more hours, but her employer could not afford it. With bills to pay, and not enough to pay them, she turned to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or the Food Assistance Program as it is called in Colorado, to help put food on the table.
This is the face of the more than 45 million Americans who currently participate in SNAP: regular, hard working people who struggle to get by. Many never thought they would find themselves living in poverty. SNAP is a bridge to success that helps them until they can get back on their feet. And I am convinced that the program has never been more urgently needed than it is today. That is why I am particularly concerned when this lifeline is threatened by individuals that abuse the program.
Cases of abuse in SNAP are relatively rare. Our data indicates that a very small fraction of SNAP benefits – roughly one cent on the dollar – is sold by clients to others or to unscrupulous store owners for cash, an illegal practice known as “trafficking.” The vast majority of SNAP recipients are honest people who play by the rules. But a few bad actors who misuse benefits can damage the program.
To be clear, any abuse of scarce taxpayer resources is too much. Americans expect and deserve a government that ensures the public investment in SNAP is managed wisely. Without that, we risk undermining public confidence in the value of SNAP, and threaten the program’s very survival. That is why we do not tolerate fraud at the Department of Agriculture. We are fortunate that the leadership of Colorado’s government, who administer SNAP in partnership with us, share that view.
The men and women of Colorado’s Department of Human Services and county departments are the leading edge of a vigorous effort to investigate illegal activity and remove bad actors from the program.
Their strategy has multiple components, including careful review of electronic benefit transfer data to identify and investigate transactions that may be fraudulent, data matching through the federal Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS) to identify cases in which clients may be receiving benefits in more than one State, and special safeguards to ensure that county-level program operations are conducted with the highest degree of integrity.
Additionally, the State is in discussion with USDA to develop strategies for new and creative approaches to fight fraud in Colorado.
These efforts are paying off. In fiscal year 2010, Colorado investigated over 6,800 cases of recipient fraud, disqualified nearly 800 people from participation, and collected over $8.5 million in claims.
At USDA, we are also strengthening our tools to root out fraudulent activity. This summer we proposed rules to fight the practice of buying and discarding food just to get money-back deposits.
Next spring we plan to increase sanctions and penalties for retailers who engage in fraud and give the vast majority of honest businesses who accept SNAP benefits a bad name.
We use state-of-the art analytics to find suspicious patterns in SNAP transactions; our next-generation system will be even more effective. And we recently updated our policies to make clear that that advertising the sale of benefits through social media like Craigslist or Facebook is illegal and can result in disqualification from SNAP.
We are pursuing these actions and many others with our partners in Colorado and elsewhere to prove to Americans through deeds that we are serious about program integrity. Individuals who try to make a quick buck off of SNAP or use benefits inappropriately will find very little sympathy under my watch. The taxpayers that make the program possible deserve nothing less than that kind of steadfast commitment. Confronting abuse head-on is one of our best strategies to make sure this critical safety net continues to be there for those who truly need it.
Kevin Concannon is USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
