The U.S. House of Representatives passed the budget reconciliation bill. It included a set of proposals to cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The bill is now in the Senate for consideration.
For the entire 80-year history of the program, the federal government funded every dollar in SNAP food benefits. To adhere to the reconciliation budget instructions, the House Agriculture Committee proposed shifting a blanket 25 percent of SNAP costs to state governments. Instead, Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden spearheaded the effort to adjust state cost-sharing responsibilities based on SNAP error rates: https://www.midwestfarmreport.com/2025/05/12/lawmakers-to-debate-snap-this-week/
Wisconsin’s payment error rate is one of the lowest in the country — just 4.41 percent in 2024.
“It is fair, proportional, and incentivizes good program management by holding high-error states accountable without dragging the states with smaller error rates, like Wisconsin, down with them,” he said after voting to pass the bill out of the House Agriculture Committee. “Every SNAP dollar fraudulently spent is a dollar that does not go toward feeding a hungry child,” Van Orden said.
The state Department of Health Services argues that the errors are not fraud. DHS says the errors are things like “unexpected changes to a person’s income” or accidents when determining if someone qualifies.
The agency has started to analyze how the proposed SNAP cuts would impact Wisconsin. DHS says it would cost taxpayers approximately $314 million annually and put 90,000 people at risk of losing benefits.
“This is over a quarter billion dollars each year that Wisconsin couldn’t use for our health care, our roads, our schools, or our economy,” says Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna.
SNAP, also known as “FoodShare” in Wisconsin, helps nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites. SNAP benefits can be used at most stores as well as many farmers’ markets. For every $1 of SNAP benefits, families generate $1.50 for the economy, according to DHS.
See more from DHS: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/news/releases/052225.htm
