Last Friday, the Department of Agriculture reported high rates of SNAP payments made in error, largely blaming the agency's emergency response during the pandemic.

The states' overpayment error rate jumped over 3% from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2022, with last year’s rate at 9.84%, while 2019 was at 6.18%.

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“USDA is committed to supporting states in improving payment accuracy in SNAP to ensure the program effectively and efficiently serves those who need it and promotes good stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” Stacy Dean, a nutrition official at USDA, said in a statement.

USDA claimed the unprecedented inflated error rate was caused by outstanding demand for SNAP to assist individuals and families in keeping food on the table as COVID-19 cost millions of people their jobs.

“The first state-by-state set of payment error rates coming out of the pandemic reflects the challenging circumstances under which the state agencies were operating, and from which many are continuing to recover,” Dean said.

The federal government responded to the pandemic with programs like emergency SNAP, giving recipients benefits that are equal to the maximum benefit for the household size, subtracting their monthly base benefit.

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Aimed at helping people keep food on the table during the COVID-19 era, SNAP emergency allotments ended in March 2023. Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act last year to terminate emergency allotments, causing concern among low-income participants, especially the elderly. The allotments were originally supposed to last until President Joe Biden’s administration declared that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency, which ended in April.

“We are doubling down to work with state partners to find ways to decrease payment errors and tackle the issues aggressively at their root cause,” Dean said.