Thank you so much for these deep dives!! I always learn so much more than I knew. And I think it helps if people understand what is going on behind the curtains. Again thank you. My money is well spent on this journalism.
"...meaning either that the payments were too high, too low, or shouldn’t have been received at all." Is this $10.5B of "improper" payouts not broken down into more transparent accounting? It would help me formulate my opinion on the meaningfulness of this administrations focus on trying to root out fraud. I guess I'm predisposed to let these things slide for the needy and focus more on corporate largess (socialism) and military contract waste, as the dollar amount might be way higher.
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. The trends in poverty and SNAP expenditures track, but I find it interesting that the SNAP curve crossed the poverty curve relatively recently. What was that all about?
I checked out the percentages of improper payments for SNAP, SS & Medicaid. (With the GAO report for SNAP and AI for SS & Medicaid.) The 11.5% of improper SNAP compares to less than 1% of SS (and that is mostly overpayments) and 5.09% for Medicaid.
I was shocked to learn from a furniture dealer in a low income area here in NC that EBT cards were often traded to make furniture purchases. I have never observed any cashier check a SNAP card with an ID.
When there is an eligible person in the household is the amount of assistance calculated based on the eligible person or on the number in the household who share food? According to an AI search one in five children--20% of children living in the U.S.--receive SNAP benefits. Something about a poverty rate of 12% compared to that 20% seems off.
There is no asset test in Massachusetts. One can have significant liquid assets and live in very posh housing so long as they structure their income to be below limits
It appears there a lot of abuse in this system which is tolerated because there is a horror of anyone going hungry in this country. But waste, fraud & abuse is perhaps more egregious in this context.
All of our “helping” programs need some fresh evaluation.
A grocery store screen approved a box of cereal and refused a child’s drink that had less sugar in it. Then it thanked the mother.
I wrote the man who designed that rule a thank-you note.
Dear Secretary Kennedy,
I am writing to thank you. I have learned that letters of complaint are read by an assistant and letters of gratitude are sometimes read by the man himself, and what I have to say I would like you to hear in your own voice as you read it.
You said, in March, that SNAP would put nutrition back at the center, and that millions of families would have greater access to real food. I want to report, from the checkout line of a grocery store in Louisiana, which did as you asked in January, that the policy works exactly as written. I have watched it. I feel I owe you the account, since the men who design a thing so rarely get to see it land.
There was a young mother ahead of me, and she had eight items, and the screen took seven. The eighth was a blue sports drink her child drinks. The screen turned it gray and would not have it. The screen had, a moment before, accepted a box of cereal containing more sugar than the drink it refused. You have built a system that can tell, with perfect confidence, the difference between two sugars on the basis of which one comes in a bottle. I could not have done it. I doubt the mother could have. The screen did it in under a second and thanked her after.
You said greater access to real food, and the access is indeed greater, in the precise sense that she now has access to fewer things, and fewer things are easier to choose among. The eighty cents she did not spend on the blue drink stayed in the account, where it waits for the three-dollar juice she cannot afford, which is real food, and now within her greater access.
I was struck by one feature I am not certain you intended. The decision to deny the drink was made in Washington. By the time it reached the store it had become hers — she was the one who said no, out loud, to her son, who is three, and who watched the bottles go back into the cashier’s hand. You have arranged for it to be administered by the mother. The boy will not grow up resenting a policy. He will grow up having watched his mother refuse him. He will never learn the name of the man who sent the gray to the screen. He will only ever know her face.
I do not know what the boy will drink instead. The tap, perhaps, which he distrusts, for reasons I am sure are unscientific and which your department is welcome to correct in him. I know he will remember the gray, and the green that came after, and the small sound the machine made — the same chime it makes for everyone, the chime that does not distinguish between a thing bought and a thing surrendered. You have made many fine distinctions, Mr. Secretary. The machine cannot make that one. It seems a small thing beside the rest.
So I thank you. The nutrition is back at the center. The families have their greater access. And in a state that did as you asked, a three-year-old is learning the first rule of the country he was born into: that there are things you may see and not have, and that the person who tells you which will be made to look like the one who chose it.
With admiration for the completeness of the design,
Josiah Pell
who stood in the line
She has her own account of that checkout. → “The Screen Said No”
So explain 'food pantries'....it seems like very town around us has one or more and they are constantly asking for food - who runs these? are they government funded? are they a part of SNAP...one would think that famine was just around the corner with all these urgent demands for food...
When on food stamps > 50 years ago, we had to buy them. The food stamp voucher would arrive 2x per month with the welfare check. The transaction was completed at the bank. We'd pay $21 from the check to buy $42 in stamps. I can't clearly remember, but I think it was during the Carter administration that we didn't have to buy the food stamps...they were free.
It might also be worth noting that the rate of recovery of improper payments is quite low. It is the responsibility of the states, and most of the errors are thought to be state agency errors in determining and verifying eligibility. (Mercatus Institute, George Mason University, 2025.)
Thank you so much for these deep dives!! I always learn so much more than I knew. And I think it helps if people understand what is going on behind the curtains. Again thank you. My money is well spent on this journalism.
"...meaning either that the payments were too high, too low, or shouldn’t have been received at all." Is this $10.5B of "improper" payouts not broken down into more transparent accounting? It would help me formulate my opinion on the meaningfulness of this administrations focus on trying to root out fraud. I guess I'm predisposed to let these things slide for the needy and focus more on corporate largess (socialism) and military contract waste, as the dollar amount might be way higher.
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. The trends in poverty and SNAP expenditures track, but I find it interesting that the SNAP curve crossed the poverty curve relatively recently. What was that all about?
I checked out the percentages of improper payments for SNAP, SS & Medicaid. (With the GAO report for SNAP and AI for SS & Medicaid.) The 11.5% of improper SNAP compares to less than 1% of SS (and that is mostly overpayments) and 5.09% for Medicaid.
I was shocked to learn from a furniture dealer in a low income area here in NC that EBT cards were often traded to make furniture purchases. I have never observed any cashier check a SNAP card with an ID.
When there is an eligible person in the household is the amount of assistance calculated based on the eligible person or on the number in the household who share food? According to an AI search one in five children--20% of children living in the U.S.--receive SNAP benefits. Something about a poverty rate of 12% compared to that 20% seems off.
There is no asset test in Massachusetts. One can have significant liquid assets and live in very posh housing so long as they structure their income to be below limits
It appears there a lot of abuse in this system which is tolerated because there is a horror of anyone going hungry in this country. But waste, fraud & abuse is perhaps more egregious in this context.
All of our “helping” programs need some fresh evaluation.
Who are your readers that you have to explain this?
This is very helpful. Military families are also affected by this system--it's complicated for them because of the odd way members are paid, with a mix of basic pay and various allowances. Veternas, too, as you point out, will be massively affected by these new rules. https://www.military.com/daily-news/headlines/2025/10/29/military-families-prepare-empty-fridges.html
A grocery store screen approved a box of cereal and refused a child’s drink that had less sugar in it. Then it thanked the mother.
I wrote the man who designed that rule a thank-you note.
Dear Secretary Kennedy,
I am writing to thank you. I have learned that letters of complaint are read by an assistant and letters of gratitude are sometimes read by the man himself, and what I have to say I would like you to hear in your own voice as you read it.
You said, in March, that SNAP would put nutrition back at the center, and that millions of families would have greater access to real food. I want to report, from the checkout line of a grocery store in Louisiana, which did as you asked in January, that the policy works exactly as written. I have watched it. I feel I owe you the account, since the men who design a thing so rarely get to see it land.
There was a young mother ahead of me, and she had eight items, and the screen took seven. The eighth was a blue sports drink her child drinks. The screen turned it gray and would not have it. The screen had, a moment before, accepted a box of cereal containing more sugar than the drink it refused. You have built a system that can tell, with perfect confidence, the difference between two sugars on the basis of which one comes in a bottle. I could not have done it. I doubt the mother could have. The screen did it in under a second and thanked her after.
You said greater access to real food, and the access is indeed greater, in the precise sense that she now has access to fewer things, and fewer things are easier to choose among. The eighty cents she did not spend on the blue drink stayed in the account, where it waits for the three-dollar juice she cannot afford, which is real food, and now within her greater access.
I was struck by one feature I am not certain you intended. The decision to deny the drink was made in Washington. By the time it reached the store it had become hers — she was the one who said no, out loud, to her son, who is three, and who watched the bottles go back into the cashier’s hand. You have arranged for it to be administered by the mother. The boy will not grow up resenting a policy. He will grow up having watched his mother refuse him. He will never learn the name of the man who sent the gray to the screen. He will only ever know her face.
I do not know what the boy will drink instead. The tap, perhaps, which he distrusts, for reasons I am sure are unscientific and which your department is welcome to correct in him. I know he will remember the gray, and the green that came after, and the small sound the machine made — the same chime it makes for everyone, the chime that does not distinguish between a thing bought and a thing surrendered. You have made many fine distinctions, Mr. Secretary. The machine cannot make that one. It seems a small thing beside the rest.
So I thank you. The nutrition is back at the center. The families have their greater access. And in a state that did as you asked, a three-year-old is learning the first rule of the country he was born into: that there are things you may see and not have, and that the person who tells you which will be made to look like the one who chose it.
With admiration for the completeness of the design,
Josiah Pell
who stood in the line
She has her own account of that checkout. → “The Screen Said No”
https://substack.com/@rossboulton1/note/p-201202143?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2leuaj
So explain 'food pantries'....it seems like very town around us has one or more and they are constantly asking for food - who runs these? are they government funded? are they a part of SNAP...one would think that famine was just around the corner with all these urgent demands for food...
…and to think that the USA has one of the highest obesity rates in the world…figure that in…
Aloha. From the COCONUT WIRELESS. ..................................................................................
When on food stamps > 50 years ago, we had to buy them. The food stamp voucher would arrive 2x per month with the welfare check. The transaction was completed at the bank. We'd pay $21 from the check to buy $42 in stamps. I can't clearly remember, but I think it was during the Carter administration that we didn't have to buy the food stamps...they were free.
Excellent! At least the country makes an attempt, and so do a number of our countrymen to take advantage of it. Such is human nature.
It might also be worth noting that the rate of recovery of improper payments is quite low. It is the responsibility of the states, and most of the errors are thought to be state agency errors in determining and verifying eligibility. (Mercatus Institute, George Mason University, 2025.)
Thank you