Healey Administration pushes back after report alleges $1 billion in Massachusetts SNAP benefits were issued improperly

A report claiming over $1 billion in SNAP waste recently in Massachusetts is receiving pushback from the Healey Administration.

The Fiscal Alliance Foundation released a damning report Thursday warning that Massachusetts’ welfare programs are experiencing rapid enrollment growth, high rates of improper payments, and serious oversight failures, particularly within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The report, authored by the Foundation’s visiting policy analyst Hayden Dublois, is the organization’s first comprehensive analysis of welfare spending in the Commonwealth. It raises significant concerns about program integrity, long-term sustainability, and the growing burden on taxpayers.

According to the study, SNAP enrollment in Massachusetts has surged by 40% over the past decade, rising from just under 785,000 recipients in 2015 to more than 1.1 million in 2024. During that same period, more than $1 billion in SNAP benefits were issued improperly between 2022 and 2024 alone.

Massachusetts now has a SNAP error rate of 14.1%, significantly higher than the national average of approximately 11% and worse than every other New England state. The Commonwealth ranks among the worst-performing states in the nation for payment accuracy.

The study also notes that between 65% and 75% of able-bodied SNAP recipients are not working, while state policies allow individuals to bypass federal asset limits and remain eligible regardless of accumulated wealth. Beginning in FY2028, federal rules will require states with error rates above 6% to share the financial burden of improper payments.

The report cites a whistleblower account describing “rampant” and “unabated” fraud within the system, along with a workplace culture that discourages basic verification of eligibility.

“More than a billion dollars in improper SNAP payments in just two years is not a rounding error — it is a complete failure of oversight,” said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. “Taxpayers are being asked to fund a system where fraud is ignored, safeguards are weakened, and accountability is treated as optional. That is unacceptable.”

The study also examines broader welfare spending trends. Medicaid now consumes nearly one out of every four state budget dollars and has increased by nearly 50% since 2015. Spending on housing and homelessness programs has more than doubled in recent years, with emergency shelter costs approaching $1 billion. In the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, caseloads have grown while spending on work-related activities has declined.

“Beacon Hill has prioritized expanding enrollment over protecting taxpayers and ensuring these programs are being used as intended,” Craney added. “When you combine skyrocketing caseloads with weak verification and rising error rates, you create an environment where fraud can thrive. Reform is long overdue.”

Hayden Dublois, the study’s author, concluded: “Massachusetts’s welfare programs are on a collision course with reality. Years of ignoring improper payments while promoting more program enrollment at all costs have now put the Commonwealth’s taxpayers in a bind. Policymakers need to reverse course and adopt commonsense reforms to address out-of-control welfare spending.”

When a question surrounding the report was posed to the Governor at a Thursday press conference, Healey stated that she continues to be really aggressive when it comes to fraud.

“As you know as Attorney General, I prosecuted and investigated fraud. My team does that day in and day out….I want to make sure that every tax dollar is spent well.”

Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance also pushed back on the fraud claims and released the following statement to Fall River Reporter.

“This report reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Department of Transitional Assistance’s programs work. Not only is the report using outdated data, it conflates payment error rate with fraud, two very different things, and includes recommendations that either are already in place or would cause the payment error rate to rise.  

“The reality is that DTA serves approximately one million Massachusetts residents who are determined eligible for these programs meeting strict program rules governed by state and federal laws and regulations.  

“The Department takes program integrity seriously. We aggressively fight fraud, waste, and abuse, working in partnership with the Office of the Auditor’s BSI team and other law enforcement agencies to ensure that any suspicious activity is investigated. And it is through those referrals and investigations that the fraud cited in this report is discovered. It is the job of every case worker and every staff person at DTA to call out and refer potential cases of fraud, waste, or abuse to our law enforcement agencies for further investigation. That is exactly what we are doing.” – DTA spokesperson 

DTA also released the following background: 

• SNAP is a $2+ billion program in Massachusetts, and the vast majority of benefits are used appropriately by eligible households. Fraud cases are rare and represent a very small share (<1%) of overall SNAP spending.  
• DTA uses advanced data analytics, data matching with existing federal government databases, EBT usage monitoring, overpayment calculations, and regulatory compliance reviews to proactively identify potential fraud.  
• The recommendations make evident a lack of understanding about the Department’s programs and operations. For example, the following “recommendations” are all currently in practice at DTA:  
• DTA has greatly limited the use of self declarations across all programs, making a change in February 2026. 
• DTA requires identify verification for all programs  
• DTA employs data matching to identify and verify wages, residency, out-of-state EBT transactions, incarceration records, death records, and more 
• DTA has implemented all SNAP provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB)  
• DTA reports annually on Program Integrity as required by the Massachusetts Legislature, and provides additional quarterly reporting to the federal agencies that oversee the programs  
• SNAP geographic waivers were eliminated in HR1/OBBB and none are currently in use.  
• DTA requires photos on EBT cards as required in Massachusetts law  
• The vast majority of SNAP clients are on Simplified Reporting, which is a 12-month certification period with 6-month interim reporting requirements, leading to very short eligibility reviews.  
• DTA already imposes “full-family sanctions” for TANF households with work required adults that refuse to comply with work requirements. 
• Fraud and theft are not the same issue and should not be conflated. Theft of benefits is perpetrated by criminal actors stealing benefits clients are eligible for, and fraud is deception to acquire benefits that someone is ineligible for.  They involve different actors, different mechanisms, and different responses.  
• EBT theft (skimming/card cloning by outside criminals) is fundamentally different from eligibility fraud (improper receipt of benefits).  
• DTA is launching chip cards later in 2026, which will help reduce the rate of skimming. See press release for further details, here. 
• The Payment Error Rate (PER), which is also separate from theft and fraud, is a federally defined measure of how accurate a state determines benefit amounts, which includes both under- and over-payments. 
• DTA has solution-oriented initiatives in place, informed by data-driven learnings to reduce the PER, and is also working with other states to learn about best practices. 

The Fiscal Alliance Foundation study concluded that “without immediate reforms focused on fraud prevention, verification, and accountability, Massachusetts taxpayers will continue to face rising costs and growing risks within the state’s welfare system.”

For a full copy of the study, click here.