Michigan could be first Midwest state to upgrade SNAP cards

Help is on the way for Michiganders who rely on taxpayer help to buy groceries via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The state is upgrading Bridge cards to help prevent theft of benefits.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has mailed about 1,000 households upgraded SNAP cards that have a chip that provides a higher level of security.

If Michigan can mail out the rest of the cards this year, it will become the first state in the Midwest to upgrade SNAP cards.

The department will mail cards to more than 699,000 households from Mid-August through September 2026, according to a document that Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request.

Timeline Progress 072326 (1) by mcclallen

That chip replaces a magnetic strip that’s easily clonable by criminals. Cloned cards can be spent at approved retailers nationwide. Criminals steal customer data by placing fake point-of-sale machines at high-traffic areas including gas stations, liquor stores and grocery stores. Private banks upgraded their cards in 2015.

Michigan recently cut its reported SNAP fraud nearly in half, from about $14 million in 2024 to $7.7 million in 2025.

The upgrade should save taxpayers millions of dollars, Rep. Jason Woolford, a Howell Republican who sponsored the bill, told CapCon in an email.

“This upgrade brings our benefits system into the modern era and will save taxpayers millions of dollars by cutting down on abuse and fraud that has gone unchecked for far too long,” Woolford wrote. “Chip‑enabled cards increase security and significantly reduce skimmer and cloning fraud. In fact, Visa identified an 85% reduction in fraud in 2019 after chip technology was introduced. We’re adding real security, real accountability, and real transparency to a system that has needed it for years.”

For over a decade, criminals have been stealing from Michigan’s poorest residents who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to buy groceries.

In 2023 and 2024, more than a hundred people in Oakland County reported that their SNAP benefits had been stolen and mostly spent in other states. One county law enforcement officer said in 2024 that the state’s Bridge card system had been hacked, CapCon reported in July.

Alabama, California, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey have upgraded to chipped SNAP cards, while Arkansas, Oregon, Virginia, and New York are in the process of upgrading, according to a dashboard from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Michigan’s state health department has not responded to a request for comment about the card upgrade.