Waste of the Day: SNAP For Lottery Winners
Topline: Maryland gave at least $319,000 in food stamps and other federally-funded benefits to prisoners, dead people, and a $2 million lottery winner.
A July report from the state’s Office of Legislative Audits found Maryland has “no comprehensive process” to ensure only eligible recipients are approved for federal assistance. Even when computers flag questionable payments, the state takes months to investigate them.
Key facts: The audit found a person who won a $2 million lottery prize in July 2023 but was still receiving benefits as recently as this February.
Six others who had either won the lottery or died (the audit lumps them together) were still receiving benefits in February. Another seven people had their benefits cut off, but only three to six months after the state’s automated computer system flagged an irregularity.
The state also gave benefits to 1,858 prisoners. Officials performed weekly checks to identify prisoners on benefit lists, but the data they used was “incomplete” and missing tens of thousands of Social Security numbers. Some prisoners were properly identified but continued to receive benefits anyway.
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Background: Maryland was recently required to pay $28 million in penalties to the federal government for its failure to disburse food stamps properly. The state had an abysmal 35.6% payment error rate in 2022. It improved to 13.6% in 2024, but that was still worse than the national average.
Under new regulations set by the Trump administration, states with an error rate of 6% or worse in their food stamp program must pay a fine.
Summary: Not every government payment error is due to sophisticated fraud. Oftentimes, officials simply fail to exercise the most basic due diligence.
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