House Republicans on the Agriculture Committee released their portion of the “big, beautiful bill” on Monday, which outlined a change in how SNAP benefits are funded.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is completely paid for by the federal government. The bill text released Monday night from Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA) proposes that the states take on some financial responsibility for the program. The size of the costs they take on would be tied to the error rate of processing the benefits and whether states overpay or underpay recipients.
The committee estimates the savings could reach $230 billion.
The lowest a state would pay would be 5%. That number would increase with the state’s error rate. States with error rates near 10% could be on the hook for 25% of the program costs.Some Republicans are wary of the changes, anticipating that the cost could unevenly burden lower-income states. States such as Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, New Jersey, and South Carolina are also in danger of facing higher costs because of their higher error rates, according to the Department of Agriculture.
Hawaii’s error rate is about 60%, per the most recent data.
