Projects

Project Overview

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service’s (FNS) mission is to increase food security and reduce hunger by providing children and households with low incomes access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education in a way that supports American agriculture and inspires public confidence. SNAP is administered at the federal level and implemented by state agencies at a local level.

As part of this work, state agencies are required to develop plans and establish and collect on claims (e.g., an amount owed as a result of benefits being overpaid or trafficked). Claims can be intentional or inadvertent on the part of the recipient or the result of state agency error. State agencies have subjectivity in determining how and whom to establish claims against, in determining which claims to compromise or waive, and in determining how to collect claims. According to section 13(b) of The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, states must collect all overissuances of SNAP benefits.

The purpose of this project is to apply a racial equity lens to assess how states make subjective claims decisions and the effects of these decisions in states with this flexibility. The work will include using data to assess the reasonableness of state claims retention and identifying challenges state agencies face and best practices in administering recipient claims. Specifically, the Insight team will—

• Conduct virtual roundtables with state agency staff.
• Analyze recipient claims data for racial equity.
• Create an inventory of recipient claims thresholds state-by-state.
• Analyze recipient claims as compared with SNAP quality control data.

Our final report will identify challenges and best practices in administering recipient claims from the state perspective to identify opportunities for improvement.

Products

Final report