Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins claimed Thursday that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is rife with fraud and abuse and that the Trump administration will require “everyone” receiving food stamps to reapply for benefits.
In an appearance on Newsmax, a conservative news channel, Rollins said that about 186,000 dead people are “receiving a check” and half a million people are receiving two SNAP payments, based on data collected from 29 states, which she said were “mostly red states.”
“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we're going to find?" she asked. “It's going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that's taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can't survive without it, and that’s the next step here.”
Rollins reportedly did not provide more details on when or how people on the program would need to reapply for benefits. “The president has made this a priority,” she said. “We will fix this program.”
Nearly 42 million Americans receive SNAP food benefits. The federal government spent about $100 billion on the program as of fiscal year 2024. Commonly known as food stamps, the program has been in the spotlight during the government shutdown as the Trump administration waged a legal fight to withhold payments that could be made using emergency funds after primary funding ran out.
SNAP spending peaked at about $125 billion in fiscal year 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has fallen since then as pandemic-related benefits expired. “State SNAP administrators already require participants to recertify their information as often as every six months, and families that receive benefits are expected to keep their work history, income and other personal information up to date,” Politico notes.
The Republican domestic policy bill enacted earlier this year also included $186 billion in cuts and enacted new work requirements and other restrictions to the program that analysts warn will make it less effective during tough economic times.