Michigan House approves adding chips to SNAP cards

The Michigan House approved a bill that aims to embed chips in Bridge Cards, which 1.4 million residents use to tap money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Lawmakers approved House Bill 4746 on a vote of 77-28. All Republicans voted for the bill while 19 Democratic lawmakers voted against it.

The bill aims to protect residents like Detroiter Kaiysha Warner. On July 15 while she slept, a criminal stole $762 of her food stamp benefits, from more than 680 miles away in Massachusetts.

About 68 miles away in Flint, Ella Montez Hodo had $360 of her food stamps stolen on April 16 by someone in New York, 680 miles away.

The bill aims to switch Bridge Cards from vulnerable magnetic stripes to embedded chips, a technology that most credit and debit cards have used since 2015.

Last year, Michigan paid at least $14 million due to SNAP fraud, partly because of criminals who clone cards and then drain accounts.

In 2023, Michigan busted a $4 million SNAP fraud scheme. Many of those cases are still pending in court, according to Kimberly Bush, the director of the Office of Public Information at the Michigan attorney general’s office.

“These cases were brought to our attention when Sam’s Club Global Security began noticing large amounts of EBT purchases being made from several Detroit area Sam’s Club stores and referred the matter to our office,” Bush wrote in an email. “A majority of the nearly 8,000 EBT card holders whose accounts were fraudulently compromised reside in the State of California.

We are still investigating the source of the card theft, but believe the defendants used cloned or skimmed versions of the EBT cards.”

Rep. Jason Woolford, R-Howell, who sponsored HB 4746, applauded the bill’s advancement. He cited a CapCon report that SNAP fraud in Michigan jumped by 387% from 2023 to 2024.

During the 2024 fiscal year alone, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services approved 1,664 of the 1,926 requests filed to replace stolen benefits, totaling nearly $885,000 in losses.

Woolford’s legislation would require the state to issue Bridge Cards with chip-enabled technology. Updated cards would provide stronger security, making it significantly harder for bad actors to steal benefits through skimming devices and other fraudulent means.

“Taxpayer dollars should never be vulnerable to criminals who are looking to exploit hardworking Michigan families,” Woolford said in a statement. “For too long, we’ve seen stories of scammers stealing benefits right out of the hands of those who need them most. By adding secure chip technology to bridge cards, we can better protect families while ensuring that taxpayer resources are used for their intended purpose.”

The cities of Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Livonia and Westland have all denied or ignored records requests seeking SNAP fraud reports for 2024.

The city of Kalamazoo gave CapCon data about SNAP fraud. Its record showed 30 allegations of SNAP fraud. The city of Flint counted two SNAP fraud reports, while Dearborn reported 137 cases.

In 2024, the state health department sent 738 replacement Bridge Cards a day for a total of more than 269,000 cards.

House Bill 4746 now moves to the Senate for further consideration.