Programs News

Due to widespread issues with the processing and delivery of food stamps in the majority of U.S. territories and states, SNAP recipients across the country are experiencing delays in their food benefits.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote a letter to 47 U.S. states and territories in the U.S. communicating the concerns regarding the extensive issues with the SNAP Benefits administration. The report revealed that there have been delays in several states with recipients saying that they have been forced to wait months for the program to pay their benefits.

U.S. States are responsible for administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with funds provided by the federal government. The program is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is a government agency that says that states must process 95% of SNAP applications and payments within 30 days as stipulated by federal law.

However, this is not the case with most of the states across the country. The Tom’s Vilsack letters revealed the worst performing states across the U.S. for timely processing of SNAP benefits. These states include:

• New Mexico
• New York
• North Dakota
• Washington D.C.
• Florida

Vilsack has addressed some states and revealed that some states have application tracking system rates higher than 95% but were pulled by the USDA on other issues such as overpayment or underpayment of SNAP benefits. For instance, despite Illinois having an APT (Application Processing Timeliness) rate of 99.86 percent, a letter was sent because the state recorded an overpayment error rate of 9.67 percent and an underpayment rate of 1.24 percent in fiscal year 2022. The United States Department of Agriculture feels that the acceptable performance should be below six percent upon adding both together.

The states that were not issued a letter from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack include Wisconsin, Wyoming, Alabama, Idaho, South Dakota, and Vermont.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in his letter wrote, “SNAP serves as our nation’s foundational safety net, a crucial resource for the well-being of low-income families, older adults, and individuals with disabilities. Timely and accurate SNAP processing is critical to meeting the nutrition needs of low-income families and protecting the integrity of SNAP. Americans in need should have access to essential benefits without unnecessary delays. States must deliver benefits in the right amounts, to the right individuals, in the required periods of time.”

Although these states are not included in the top five states having the worst track record for processing SNAP benefits applications, the previous report has found some delays in other states, especially the ones that were issued a warning by Tom Vilsack.

In Tennessee, nearly thousands of SNAP applications have been delayed due to the advent of the new processing system, leaving some residents to go without SNAP benefits for months.
A spokesperson for Tennessee’s Department of Human Services said, “Since January, the Department has reduced its number of overdue pending applications by more than 97 percent. At close of business 3/22, we had fewer than 1,500 pending initial SNAP applications older than 30 days. We are continuing to make significant progress to reduce our processing times to ensure customers receive benefits as timely as possible.”

Likewise, several counties in Colorado have experienced delays with regard to administering SNAP benefits with one county processing a quarter of applications within the federally mandated time limit. The technical glitches in a recently implemented application portal by Florida have also resulted in SNAP recipients losing all or some of their recertification applications.