Dozens of states could face new costs because of high error rates in SNAP food aid

Several dozen states could have to fork over millions of dollars to provide food aid to lower-income residents, if they don’t cut down on payment errors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Nine states, meanwhile, won’t have to pay a penny toward SNAP benefits, because their error rates are so low that they won an exemption from a cost-sharing requirement included in a big tax-and-spending law signed by President Donald Trump.

Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides a first look at the winners — and potential losers — under the new law.

The error rate refers rather the percentage of SNAP benefits paid either above or below what people should have received, primarily because of mistakes. While low-error states are guaranteed to owe nothing when the annual cost-sharing requirement begins in October 2027, others will have another year to try to reduce their errors and decrease the hit to their budgets.

States with high error rates will have to make choices that could impact their residents. To fund SNAP benefits, do they spend less on public schools, law enforcement or mental health care? To save money, do they squeeze people off SNAP by making it harder to stay in the program? Or do they drop out entirely from the federal food aid program that’s been around for decades?

“There are billions of dollars that are at stake that states will have to find the money to be able to pay if they want to continue to operate a SNAP program,” said Chloe Green, assistant director for policy at the American Public Human Services Association.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known informally as food stamps, provides monthly payments to help low-income residents to buy food. More than 37 million people nationwide received SNAP benefits in March, according to preliminary USDA figures. That's down nearly 5 million people — over 11% — from a year earlier.

A law signed by Trump last July expanded requirements for many adult SNAP recipients to work, volunteer or participate in job training. The new work and cost-share requirements are intended to increase accountability for participants and states — and to provide federal savings that offset new tax cuts.

“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Administrative costs for SNAP currently are split 50-50 between the federal government and states. But federal law requires states to start paying 75% of SNAP administrative costs this October.

The federal government currently covers the full cost of SNAP benefits provided to people. But beginning in October 2027, states with SNAP error rates of 6% or greater could have to pay a portion of the benefits.

The error rates released Wednesday, which cover the 2025 fiscal year, are the first that matter. Federal law says states can choose to use either their 2025 or 2026 error rates when determining what percentage of SNAP benefits they must pay starting in October 2027.

South Dakota had the lowest error rate last year at about 2.5%. Nebraska had an error rate of 5.9% — just barely below the cutoff to avoid paying part of the SNAP benefits. Other states with error rates below 6% were Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Vermont, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Federal law sets a sliding scale for how much money states must pay toward SNAP benefits. States with error rates between 6%-8% will have to eventually pay 5% of the benefit costs. Those with error rates between 8%-10% will have to pay 10% of benefit costs. And those with error rates over 10% will have to pay 15% of benefit costs.

Consider Missouri as an example. It had an error rate of 8.7% last year. Unless it improves next year, the state will have pick up 10% of SNAP benefit costs starting in October 2027.

Missouri residents received about $1.5 billion of SNAP benefits in 2024, the latest year for which federal data is available. If that same amount of benefits is paid in the future, Missouri could have to cover $150 million of the costs; that's a sum greater than the total budgeted for several state prisons.

An exception in the federal law gives states with the highest error rates more time to try to reduce them. States with error rates of at least 13.34% last year will receive a delay in their cost-share requirements until at least the 2029 fiscal year.

The delay will benefit Alaska, which had the highest error rate of over 23%. Other jurisdictions receiving a one-year, cost-share delay are Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon and the District of Columbia.

More states still have a shot at getting an extension. States whose error rates exceed 13.34% in 2026 could have their cost-sharing requirements delayed until the 2030 fiscal year.

A recent survey of state agencies that run SNAP found that most already are analyzing the root causes of their payment errors. The mistakes appear to be evenly attributable to SNAP recipients and program administrators, and many states are planning to increase staff focused on eliminating errors, according to the survey released by American Public Human Services Association.

But states also are planning for cuts, if they are forced to pay a portion of SNAP benefits. More than a quarter of the states responding to the survey said they could consider narrowing eligibility policies, and four states said they could consider withdrawing from SNAP entirely. The report did not list those states.

Some advocates for low-income residents want Congress to postpone the SNAP cost-share requirements for all states. That would require a change in federal law.

The error-rate data “really underscore the urgent need for Congress to delay this massive cost shift to state budgets,” said Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Many people already are struggling with high grocery prices, and “this is coming at a time when millions of people have already lost food assistance,” Bergh said.

FILE - SNAP EBT information sign is displayed at a gas station in Riverwoods, Ill., Nov. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

Less than 24 hours after the NCAA Division I Cabinet approved a monumental change in eligibility rules, a group of 15 college basketball players filed a lawsuit in an Ohio state court claiming the new age-based model unfairly shuts them out of further competition.

The NCAA will now allow athletes five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first. The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, pregnancy or active-duty military service. No longer will extensions be considered for athletes who are injured.

Athletes whose eligibility expired by spring 2026 under the traditional model — four years of competition over five years — will not be allowed a fifth year of competition under the new rules that go into effect this fall.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cincinnati (Hamilton County) sought temporary and permanent injunctive relief that would allow a fifth year of competition for athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 and began their college sports careers that fall and never redshirted. A judge denied a temporary restraining order hours after the lawsuit was filed and scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday on the request for a preliminary injunction.

The new eligibility rule “unjustifiably restrains their ability to earn money through use of their name, image, and likeness (‘NIL’) connected to their work as Division I athletes,” attorneys Ryan Downton and Charles Rittgers wrote in the complaint.

Similar lawsuits are expected to be filed in other states.

The Division I Cabinet said in a statement posted on X that it was aware of legal action challenging its decision and that "we do not intend to change course.”

The Cabinet said while age-based eligibility was under consideration, the Division I Board of Directors made clear any rule change would apply going forward and not retroactively to athletes whose eligibility was completed by the spring of 2026.

“Student-athletes who will exhaust their eligibility this year have received the full period of eligibility permitted by NCAA bylaws and the life-changing benefits college sports provides,” the Cabinet said. “Giving those student-athletes another season would destabilize rosters just ahead of the coming season by disrupting settled expectations of countless student-athletes regarding their expected roster spots and playing time next year, including incoming freshmen who are eager to participate in the life-changing experience of college athletics.”

Nine of the plaintiffs in the Ohio case have played or planned to play next season at Ohio schools. The rest, according to the complaint, have played multiple games in the state.

The complaint said class of 2022 athletes competed for playing time against older athletes who had eligibility extended because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also noted the NCAA allowed 2022 high school graduates to play a full professional season before enrolling in 2023 and that they are not excluded from playing in 2026-27.

“NCAA athletes have a reasonable expectation that they will be treated fairly by the NCAA and that NCAA rules will be applied consistently, regardless of the athlete’s background before they attend an NCAA school and regardless of the year in which they graduated from high school,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit points out that the plaintiffs don't challenge the concept of a defined eligibility period or the five-for-five rule itself.

“Rather, they challenge the NCAA’s application of the rule” that allows players they competed against from the high school class of 2017-20 and 2023-25 an additional year of competition while denying plaintiffs the same opportunity," the attorneys wrote. “The NCAA then compounded the problem by allowing former professional players to compete in their fifth year following high school graduation regardless of the number of professional games they had played, while denying plaintiffs the same opportunity for a fifth year of competition.”

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

FILE - This photo taken with a fisheye lens shows the NCAA logo displayed at mid-court before Albany's practice for a second-round game of the NCAA college basketball tournament March 21, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)