The US Department of Agriculture hasannounced it will hire a new “chief integrity officer”to oversee federal nutrition programs such as the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program forWomen, Infants and Children(WIC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). The integrity of SNAP in particular has been a popular topic among those in the Trump administration, includingUSDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who argue that SNAP enables a “lifestyle of dependency” and seek major program reforms in the upcomingFarm Bill.But these arguments have been conjured from very little science and a whole lot of smoke—and have the effect of distracting the public from more pressing issues at hand.
SNAP is among the nation’s most effective and efficient programs
Monitoring any government program is necessary to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively, and the USDA does so through itsquality control processand定期报告on fraud and abuse. In fiscal year 2011, as part of the Obama administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an extensive review ofmore than 15,000 storesfor compliance with SNAP program rules. The results of these assessments, combined with USDA participation data, tell us the program is working as intended, and with remarkably few problems.
SNAP fraud1—broadly definedas exchanging benefits for cash or falsifying participant or retailer applications to illegally obtain or accept benefits—happens relatively infrequently, though it’s difficult to measure. The USDA’s most recentreport on the topicestimated that it affected about 1.5 percent of all SNAP benefits received between 2012 and 2014. This represents a slight increase since theearly 2000s(1.0 to 1.3 percent between 2002 and 2011), but remains substantially lower thanin the 1990s, when reported rates were as high as 3.8 percent.
Compare this to some of the other federal programs contained in the Farm Bill—like crop insurance. Back in 2013, former USDA secretary Tom Vilsackvoiced concernsabout the integrity of crop insurance programs due to error and fraud rates that exceeded those of SNAP. As with SNAP, illegal activity is largely uncovered by way of criminal investigations. According to the Department of Justice, recent convictions and sentences connected with the federal crop insurance program have included theindictment of a Kentucky agricultural producerfor insurance fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering; anIowa farmerwho received more than $450,000 in crop insurance proceeds illegally; aLouisiana farmerwho created shell farms to receive more than $5.4 million in subsidy payments; and aKentucky crop insurance agentwhose clients received nearly $170,000 in indemnity payments for false claims. And those are just the cases from the last six months. Unlike SNAP, no chief integrity officer has been assigned to monitor fraud and abuse in the program.
So yes, we should be striving for continuous improvement in the operation of all federal programs. But explaining why SNAP in particular has come under such intense scrutiny requires some historical and political context—and a good understanding of who might benefit from maintaining old narratives.
Learn more about SNAP, listen to Sarah Reinhardt on the Got Science? podcast
上升,下降,和死亡NAP fraud
Though President Lyndon B. Johnson signed theFood Stamp Actinto law in 1964, the program began to gain popularity in the 1970s, when participation doubled from 5 million to 10 million over the course of the decade. As participation increased, the USDA began to discoverincidents of abuse, eventually revealing a widespread pattern of illegal activity that would plague the program for the next twenty years. Reported rates of fraud at this time were between10 and 20 percent.
The widespread abuse lent itself to growing public disapproval of the food stamps program and, accompanied by racist and classist rhetoric around so-called“welfare queens,”fueled substantialprogram reformby the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.
But what likely ushered in drastic improvements in rates of fraud and abuse was theintroduction of new electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems, which fully replaced paper food stamps in 2004. In addition to requiring a 4-digit PIN number, EBT cards create a record of each purchase, increasing the ease with which agencies can identify and document illegal use.
That brings us, more or less, to the efficient and effective program that we’ve seen for the last decade.
Despite how well SNAP works, politicians have continued to frame it as a program that suffers from rampant misuse and illegal activity. For those seekingdrastic budget cutsand reforms, that negative narrative grants permission to discredit both the program and those who use it—and one needs to look no further than President Trump’swelfare reform proposalsor Speaker Paul Ryan’s comment about thetailspin of “inner-city culture”to know that the legacy of the welfare queen is alive and well.
Speaking of integrity…
Photo: USDA
To get a sense of where this is all headed, keep your eyes on USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue—if you can. He’s been making some quick pivots lately.
At a May 2017House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculturehearing,Perdue statedthat “SNAP has been a very important, effective program,” and that the agency was considering no changes. “You don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken.”
Less than a year later, the secretary has voiced his support for a number of proposed program changes, includingstricter work requirementsfor adults without dependents. Not unlike the recent announcement aimed at nutrition program integrity, these proposals are often grounded more in political ideology than fact. USDA’s own data shows that most SNAP participants who can work do work—albeit in unstable jobs—andcounters the notionthat participants stay on the program for long periods of time.
当众议院公布农业法案的草案, which may happen as early as this week, Perdue’s response (or lack thereof) could provide insight on the policy proposals he’s prepared to support. More than likely, he’ll continue to endorse the positions of his party—but then again, we’ve been surprised before.
- Fraud and abuse should be distinguished fromerror rates, or improper payment rates, which capture how often SNAP participants receive underpayment or overpayment of benefits. (The overwhelming majority of SNAP errors are attributed to unintentional error by recipients or administrative staff.) Program error rates have also experienced substantial declines in recent years: they reached an all-time low of2 percent in 2013, down from6.6 percent in 2003. And though a2015 USDA OIG reviewof the quality control process found understated error rates in some states, the resulting corrective actions target state agencies—not individual SNAP participants.