Michigan faces $890M bill looming for food stamp program

President Donald Trump signed a spending bill into law on July 4 that will shift responsibility for about $890 million of food stamps to Michigan. The state can’t pay the bill, according to Michigan’s top executive.

A change Congress could make to the program that feeds about 1.5 million Michiganders would be “unacceptable,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a June 4 post.

"In Michigan, we will fight to make sure our kids and families are fed, but we need Republicans in our congressional delegation to step up for their own constituents who need SNAP and Medicaid to survive," Whitmer said in a statement made public June 4. “If these cuts are signed into law, more Michiganders will go to bed with a pit in their stomach. That’s unacceptable.”

The federal government funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which the state administers.

The cuts could harm Michiganders, Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said in a June 12 hearing in the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services about the proposed changes to SNAP as well as the Women, Infants, and Children food program.

“SNAP, WIC and other federally funded food programs provide a lifeline for Michigan residents across the state. We know it by the numbers, but it’s made abundantly clearer from the stories of those who’ve depended on these resources to make ends meet, like the ones we heard from those who courageously testified this week,” Irwin said.

SNAP feeds around 42 million people nationwide.

The State Budget Office stated that the proposed changes could require Michigan, which received $3.2 billion in federal SNAP funding last year, to pay up to $800 million annually to cover benefits and $90 million annually for administrative costs.

The federal government wants Michigan to have a stake in the food program, partly because of rampant fraud.

Reported food stamp fraud in Michigan jumped by nearly 400% from 2023 and 2024, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported. But in those same years, the state only investigated 110 cases in 2023 and 110 cases in 2024, according to documents obtained through a records request. CapCon has filed a records request to learn the number of convictions from those investigations.

The state mailed 269,644 replacement Bridge Cards in 2024. 

Bridge Cards use a magnetic strip that can easily be cloned. Criminals steal funds in several ways: installing a fake card reader at public places, buying compromised log-ins on the dark web and using phishing emails. Meanwhile, banks have, since 2015, protected their customers’ money by embedding chips into debit and credit cards.

On June 27, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service released the annual SNAP state payment error rates. This is a measure of how accurately states determine who is eligible to receive benefits. The national payment error rate for fiscal year 2024 is 10.93%.

States with error rates at or above 6% must, under USDA rules, develop a plan to improve payment accuracy. Forty-four states will be required to submit and execute corrective action plans for FY 2024. Further, states with continually high error rates – above the national average for two consecutive years – are held financially responsible. Five states are in the condition and will face a financial penalty.

“Since the start of the Trump Administration, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service has been aggressively working to help states lower their error rates, and we expect all states to step up their accountability and integrity measures,” said FNS Administrator James C. Miller in a press release. “FNS is fully committed to providing states the tools, expertise, and support they need to deliver SNAP benefits accurately, on time, and only to those who are lawfully eligible.”

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment. In 2024, the federal government urged Michigan to adopt chipped cards. It hasn’t, and the poorest Michiganders pay the price in lost benefits.