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Well-known
During the government shutdown, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has been reviewing data from 29 states administering the food stamp program. Rollins’s review has found EBT cards that have been carrying balances of more than $10,000. It found cards that haven’t been used in years. It found cards issued to people who never existed.
“It’s a broken and corrupt program,” she told reporters.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as food stamps are formally known, has been around since the 1930s but ballooned during the Biden administration years and now serves 42 million people in the US, one-eighth of the population. What’s happening? Is the program running efficiently and properly? Will the shutdown really “starve children” as the Trump administration’s critics are charging?
Joining host Eric Eggers on The Drill Down podcast is returning guest Andrew McClenahan from the United Council on Welfare Fraud. McClenahan’s organization represents state-level investigators of welfare fraud. And it turns out there is a lot of it to investigate.
The SNAP program began in the 1930s during the Great Depression but “exploded” more than 40 percent during the Biden administration, according to President Trump’s Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins. Rollins told Fox News recently that her office asked every state to send its data on SNAP usage so it could better understand the details of the enormous spike in cost and participation rates.
The federal government funds SNAP, but it is administered by each state, which sets benefit levels and eligibility requirements. Twenty-nine states have complied with the data request so far, and it has already found “thousands and thousands of illegal uses of the EBT card,” Rollins told reporters. Since they began reviewing this information, “we’ve got almost 700,000 people moved off,” she said, “and we’ve arrested about 118 people.”
That review found one man who was receiving SNAP benefits from six different states at the same time.
thedrilldown.com
“It’s a broken and corrupt program,” she told reporters.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as food stamps are formally known, has been around since the 1930s but ballooned during the Biden administration years and now serves 42 million people in the US, one-eighth of the population. What’s happening? Is the program running efficiently and properly? Will the shutdown really “starve children” as the Trump administration’s critics are charging?
Joining host Eric Eggers on The Drill Down podcast is returning guest Andrew McClenahan from the United Council on Welfare Fraud. McClenahan’s organization represents state-level investigators of welfare fraud. And it turns out there is a lot of it to investigate.
The SNAP program began in the 1930s during the Great Depression but “exploded” more than 40 percent during the Biden administration, according to President Trump’s Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins. Rollins told Fox News recently that her office asked every state to send its data on SNAP usage so it could better understand the details of the enormous spike in cost and participation rates.
The federal government funds SNAP, but it is administered by each state, which sets benefit levels and eligibility requirements. Twenty-nine states have complied with the data request so far, and it has already found “thousands and thousands of illegal uses of the EBT card,” Rollins told reporters. Since they began reviewing this information, “we’ve got almost 700,000 people moved off,” she said, “and we’ve arrested about 118 people.”
That review found one man who was receiving SNAP benefits from six different states at the same time.
SNAP Judgments | The Drill Down
During the government shutdown, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has been reviewing data from 29 states administering the food stamp...
thedrilldown.com
