Maryland’s Struggle With SNAP Is With Theft, Not Agency Fraud
In 2022, the state of Maryland had a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—otherwise known as food stamps—payment error rate of 35.56 percent—the second largest in the country. The high error rate came out of nowhere as the state never saw error rates like that in the past.
Recently a whistleblower within the current governor Wesley Moore’s administration leaked to Fox 45 Baltimore that the state intentionally kept up a high error rate to delay federal penalties. Following recent changes under the Big Beautiful Bill, states can avoid new penalties for SNAP overpayments for a few years if they show they are actively remedying the problem.
States with an overpayment rate above 10 percent could be forced to pay back 15 percent of benefits. Overpayments between 6 to 8 percent would have to pay back 5 percent of benefits. States are also on the hook for subsidizing administrative costs of the program. If Maryland didn’t get their rate below 10 percent in time, they would be on the hook for close to $300 million in SNAP spending according to Maryland Matters. Since 2022, error rates have steadily declined so they might be in the clear.
Moore has denied the allegations of intentional error rates and refused to investigate the issue, which he ascribed to staff turnover who were unfamiliar with the system.
But there’s no sign that the excessively high error rate in 2022 was related to large-scale fraud or errors. Error rates are based on SNAP cases that are flagged for investigation, not necessarily those eventually found to be linked to fraud, error, or theft. They may be based on a subsample of cases that year, not all SNAP recipients.
Based on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) state activity reports for SNAP, total fraud in 2023 for Maryland—the highest in reported records—was only $938,964—less than .1 percent of total issuance for the year. And that was for all types of inaccurate payments—fraud, household errors, and agency errors—the latter of which was only $518,572.
Essentially, Maryland suddenly started flagging a lot of cases as errors that did not wind up being fraud or errors. If there truly was a 35.56 improper payment rate, the state would have accidentally paid out $600 million a year—based on $1.68 billion in total SNAP issuance for 2023. That money would be owed back to the USDA and potentially sink Maryland’s budget.
SNAP Theft Since 2023
Yet, rather than agency fraud, the state is now dealing with an avalanche of SNAP theft. A separate report from the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) researching Maryland’s SNAP theft repayment program shows that the state “replaced more than $22.6 million of SNAP benefits stolen between October 2022 and December 2024,” more than 11 times the annual SNAP errors and fraud listed in prior years.
That report appears to be the only data for 2024 published so far. One anecdotal reference pegged prior annual theft totals at around $1 million a year.
In 2023, Maryland passed House Bill 502 and signed into law by Governor Moore that required the state to replace 100 percent of benefits stolen on or after January, 2021.
