The Trump administration’s “one big beautiful bill” makes multiple changes to the snap program—including how much state’s will have to contribute in paying for the food stamps.

By 2028, the changes in the bill could require Pennsylvania to pay $800 million more a year than what they pay now.

“It does jeopardize our ability to continue to fund the program altogether,” said Hoa Pham, the deputy secretary of income maintenance at the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

The shift to states covering more of the program comes in two changes.

First, starting in 2027, states will pay 75% of the administrative costs of SNAP… compared to the 50% they pay now. This will shrink federal cost sharing of administrative expenses from 50% to 25%, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will save the United States $27 billion over the next 10 years.

The annual increase for Pennsylvania would be $125 million, according to the state’s Dep. of Human Services.

Secondly, states could be on the hook to help pay for the benefits themselves. The federal government used to cover 100% of SNAP benefit costs— the money that actually gets sent out to families.

Now, states could pay up to 15% of their SNAP benefit costs depending on their payment error rate.

What is a Payment Error Rate?

SNAP participants and administrators can make mistakes on paperwork.

“It could be something as small as a an applicant forgot to mention a specific, new income resource,” Pham said.

Some mistakes can result in a payment error. Either too much money is sent out, or too little.

“If that happens, we correct the mistake. If we send too little, we balance it out in the next payment. If we send too much, we work with the inspector general’s office to recover the money back,” Pham said.

The mistakes are tallied over the course of the year to calculate a state’s “payment error rate”.

Waste?

The Trump administrations One Big Beautiful Bill directly links is a state has to help pay for benefits to its payment error rate. If a state has an error rate below 6%, they won’t have to pay for any benefits.

A 6-8% rate leads to a state paying for 5% of their benefits. 8-10% is a 10% benefit pay requirement, and any state with a rate above 10% is on the hook to pay for 15% of their state’s benefits. 

Around 2 million people participate in Pennsylvania’s SNAP program. The Independent Fiscal Office estimates the state will receive $4.5 billion in benefits this year. The benefit's sharing provision of the bill starts in 2028, and will rely on the error rates from 2025 or 2026.

Based off of Pennsylvania’s current error rate of 10.73%, the state would have to pay $660 million of their benefit costs.

Some Republicans say linking a state’s error rate to federal funding could help fight waste.

“It's about accountability, making sure that states are incentivized, just like the federal government, to run these programs as efficiently as possible,” said Elizabeth Stelle, the vice president of policy for the conservative think tank Commonwealth Foundation.

Some in D.C. have linked the payment error rate to “waste, fraud, and abuse”, an accusation the Department of Human Services staunchly opposes.

“Fraud is when someone is intentionally lying. The mistakes that are recorded in the payment error rate are unintentional,” Pham said. “If any of our staff suspect there is fraud, we report it to the state’s inspectors general office for investigation, and potentially prosecution depending on what law enforcement find."

State Budget Context

Pennsylvania lawmakers are in the middle of a budget impasse; with Senate Republicans saying the state’s roughly $3 billion structural deficit needs to be addressed.

Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and leaders in the Democratic controlled House say the state needs investments in public transit and funding— and are willing to use some money the state has saved up to cover the difference.

As lawmakers squabble over how to spend a couple billion dollars, a looming $800 million increase in the state’s SNAP program costs could add to the fiscal pressure this year and for year’s to come.

Department spokespeople have expressed concern that the extra financial burden will limit the state’s ability to operate efficiently— often generalizing the increase at “around $1 billion”.

Commonwealth Foundation says the state has three years to decrease its payment error rate, which could drastically reduce how much it would have to contribute.

“A lot of the numbers that are being thrown around that sound very big and scary are making some very large assumptions,” Stelle said. "And I think people just need to take a step back and ask, how do we want these programs to run?”

 

Recovery from Pandemic

Pennsylvania had a SNAP payment error rate of ~7% in 2019, a little below the national average. Then COVID happened. People were able to fill out applications online—and the Pennsylvania error rate jumped to 14%.

“We took this waiver, knowing fair well that it could have an impact on our error rate,” Pham said, "but we took these steps to reduce the barriers to connect to the assistance, in the midst of a global pandemic."

There is no error rate data for 2020 and 2021. Starting in 2023, administrative changes to SNAP clashed with the state’s operating systems, jumped the rate to 16%.

“We’ve subsequently made changes, to change our process and our systems so we don’t have these kinds of errors anymore,” Pham said.

Pennsylvania’s rate for 2024 was just announced as 10.73%, which is below the national average of 10.93%.