Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Illinois\u2019 payment error rate for food assistance continues to grow with federal penalties set to take effect in about a year.<\/p>\n
The data shows Illinois made errors on 14.7% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments in federal fiscal 2025. That includes 13.3% of all payments being higher than they should have been.<\/p>\n
The error rate is higher than the 11.6% rate of the previous fiscal year. The continuing growth comes as the federal government is set to impose new penalties beginning in October 2027 on states with high error rates on SNAP payments. For Illinois, the penalty could cost about $700 million.<\/p>\n
The federal government defines an erroneous payment as one that is $57 higher or lower than it should have been. Only Alaska, Delaware, Georgia, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia had higher error rates than Illinois in fiscal 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIllinois\u2019 SNAP error rate has skyrocketed because of years of mismanagement, and our most vulnerable will be paying the price,\u201d House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, said in a statement. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about taking benefits away from families who legitimately need assistance. It\u2019s about making sure the program is administered properly, and taxpayer dollars are protected. Fraud, waste, and abuse have no place in government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gov. JB Pritzker\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Federal changes<\/p>\n
Illinois and most other states will have to cover a greater portion of costs for SNAP under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, also known as H.R. 1, based on the state\u2019s error rate.<\/p>\n
Beginning in federal fiscal 2028 that begins in October 2027, many states will begin covering a portion of SNAP benefits. States with an error rate greater than 10% will have to cover 15% of the cost of benefits starting in fiscal 2029. The delayed implementation gives the state another year to lower its error rate and potentially pay for a smaller portion of the benefits.<\/p>\n
States with lower error rates would cover a smaller portion of the benefits and those with an error rate under 6% will not have to cover any benefits. The national error rate is 10.6% and has declined for two straight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re setting a new bar at 6% and saying, \u2018if you can\u2019t get to 6%, we\u2019re going to take SNAP away or charge you a whole bunch of money,\u2019\u201d Pritzker told reporters last August. \u201cHow do they want us to get to 6%? By cutting people off of SNAP.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illinois is one of 20 states with an error rate of at least 10%, and the state is expected to pay about $700 million to cover the cost of benefits because of the penalty.<\/p>\n
The state fiscal 2027 budget signed earlier this month calls for spending $55 million to hire 450 new employees at the Department of Human Services, including to help update the state\u2019s systems to comply with federal changes to SNAP and Medicaid eligibility.<\/p>\n
Also beginning in federal fiscal 2027, which begins in October 2026, states will have to cover 75% of administrative costs for SNAP, rather than 50%. Illinois lawmakers appropriated $100 million for administrative expenses in state fiscal 2027, which begins July 1. That\u2019s up from $60 million in fiscal 2026.<\/p>\n
The state provided benefits to about 1.5 million people in May, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services. That was about 88,500 fewer people than in April. About 150,000 Illinoisians were expected to lose food assistance benefits beginning May 1 after new work requirements prescribed in H.R. 1 went into effect.<\/p>\n
The new state budget established the Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger, or FRESH Program, for people who have lost or seen their SNAP benefits reduced. They would be eligible for a one-time $400 payment. The program is scheduled to last just one year and is estimated to cost about $70 million.<\/p>\n
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Illinois\u2019 payment error rate for food assistance continues to grow with federal penalties set to take effect in about a year. The data shows Illinois made errors on 14.7% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments in federal fiscal 2025. That includes 13.3% of all payments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2726,2725,2723,2770,3013,2724],"class_list":["post-23025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-illinois","tag-illinois","tag-illinois-dining","tag-illinois-food","tag-illinois-grocery-stores","tag-illinois-news","tag-illinois-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117307056048637851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}