Recent data from the United States Department of Agriculture shows that Alaska had a 57% payment error rate for administering food stamp benefits — an astounding percentage that is more than five times the U.S. average of 11.5%. Public assistance advocates told Anchorage Daily News that the error rate, "which measures how accurately a state agency processes federal benefits," underscores the Alaska Division of Public Assistance's year-long struggle to process applications for food stamps and other federal benefits for countless residents in the state. Specifically, the division of public assistance misinterpreted a federal waiver that allowed state agencies to forgo regular eligibility checks for food stamp recipients during the pandemic. The state continued to renew Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications until July 2022, even though automatic renewals were supposed to end in January 2022.
Out of 680 SNAP cases filed in Alaska last year, 461 were deemed correct while 229 were flagged for errors, according to Tama Carson, deputy director of the Alaska Division of Public Assistance. Of those, 192 were erroneous due to the waiver misapplication, and just 37 were true overpayments or underpayments.
In addition to Alaska's high payment error rate, the national overpayment rate rose from 6.18% in 2019 to 9.84% in 2022, which prompted a "rare rebuke" from all leaders of the congressional Agriculture committees, per a Politico report.
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