If you’ve been following recent news in Ģ����Ƶ about the —better known as SNAP or food stamps—you might have heard an alarming number: 

Ģ����Ƶ’s SNAP payment error rate was 15.21% in 2025.

�ճ󲹳�’s . And under new federal rules, it could cost Ģ����Ƶ hundreds of millions of dollars.

So what does the error rate mean for taxpayers, families, and the people who administer SNAP?

And what are Ģ����Ƶ lawmakers doing to reduce it?

What Does the SNAP Error Rate Measure?

A SNAP payment error happens when a household receives more or less in benefits than it should have. In 2025, 13.62% of Ģ����Ƶ’s SNAP payments were overpayments, and 1.59% were underpayments. Added together, these two percentages total the state’s error rate.

In April of 2025, about 1.88 million Ģ����Ƶns relied on SNAP assistance to feed their families. That means that over 255,000 payments were too high, while about 30,000 were too low.

It’s important to note that making an error isn’t the same thing as committing fraud. Fraud is intentional. SNAP payment errors are usually unintentional and can happen when a household’s information changes, an eligibility worker makes a mistake, or the system that administers the program calculates benefits incorrectly.

Why Is the Error Rate Getting Attention Now?

The federal government has historically paid the full cost of SNAP benefits.

But with the passage of the in 2025, most states with SNAP error rates of 6% or higher will have to pay a share of their residents’ benefits starting in October of 2027. The higher the error rate, the higher the state’s share will be:

• Error rate below 6%: state will pay 0% of SNAP benefits
• Error rate from 6% to 8%: state will pay 5% of SNAP benefits
• Error rate from 8% to 10%: state will pay 10% of SNAP benefits
• Error rate of 10% or higher: state will pay 15% of SNAP benefits

At Ģ����Ƶ’s current SNAP payment error rate of 15.21%, the state could soon face a cost of about $500 million a year to make sure everyone receives their payments. 

This creates a big potential burden for taxpayers because Ģ����Ƶ could have to raise taxes or cut public services to increase revenues enough to pay the state’s share of SNAP benefits. 

For families who use SNAP payments to help put food on the table, the discovery of an incorrect benefit amount—either too high or too low—could create uncertainty as they work to manage a tight budget. They might be especially worried about having to pay something back if they’ve been receiving overpayments. 

The high error rate also has SNAP recipients wondering whether they’ll face changes to eligibility requirements or even reduced access to the program if the state isn’t able to cover all the new costs.

But the federal government has granted Ģ����Ƶ and other states with error rates over 13.34% permission to delay the start of their SNAP cost-sharing until October of 2028. 

That extra year creates a window of opportunity for Ģ����Ƶ’s leaders to address the issue, but they still need to act quickly.

What Can Ģ����Ƶ Do to Reduce Its Error Rate?

Lawmakers are already making key changes that should lower Ģ����Ƶ’s SNAP error rate: 

• They increased funding for SNAP in the new state budget that took effect in July of 2026, including $6.9 million specifically dedicated to reducing the error rate. 
• They’re expanding administrative staff training on the complicated SNAP eligibility rules and empowering case workers to conduct more thorough case reviews. 
• They’ve submitted waiver requests to the federal government to allow the state to automate more of the eligibility process.

Moving forward, state leaders are also planning to improve , the online system Ģ����Ƶns use to apply for and manage SNAP and other public benefits. Better technology should make it easier for families to submit information correctly and for eligibility workers to process cases accurately.

And as lawmakers implement these SNAP system improvements, they could also explore . That would make it easier for someone receiving public assistance to gain skills, find a job, and become self-sufficient—so they can thrive without welfare benefits.

What’s the True Measure of a Successful Welfare Program?

Safety net programs like SNAP are vital to the well-being of people and communities across Ģ����Ƶ. They support individuals and families when they face challenges like disabilities or temporary hardships. 

So it’s crucial that these programs operate correctly, but it’s also essential to make sure they achieve their ultimate goal. 

After all, the true measure of a program’s success isn’t just a low error rate—it’s the ability of that program to help break cycles of poverty and make it easier, not harder, for Ģ����Ƶns and their families to flourish.

Additional Resources

Alliance for Opportunity

CBS News

Ģ����Ƶ Budget & Policy Institute

Ģ����Ƶ Recorder

U.S. Food and Nutrition Administration

U.S. Food and Nutrition Administration

U.S. Food and Nutrition Administration

The post What Is Ģ����Ƶ’s SNAP Error Rate? And What Can Policymakers Do Ģ����Ƶ It? appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Takeaways:

• Welfare cliffs and marriage penalties are discouraging people from work and forming families.
• The cliffs and penalties may mean that our clients are locked into poverty for much longer than they would be otherwise and despite our best efforts.
• GCO has created that allows anyone to see when a particular family can expect to experience benefit cliffs as they earn more money through work.��

Important Link:

If you work in a nonprofit serving the poor, you need to know that the government benefits your clients receive are likely discouraging them from working or forming a family, two things shows could lift them out of poverty the fastest.��

This is an especially tough problem for nonprofits, like GCO, that work to get their clients into good-paying jobs and strengthen their family relationships.

What’s going on?

These disincentives to work are often called “welfare cliffs” and the disincentives to family formation are called “marriage penalties.” Essentially, “cliffs” are generated any time a person receiving government benefits gets a raise at work that causes them to lose more in benefits than they will earn in additional income from the raise. These same individuals can face a similar financial penalty IF they decide to marry. In many cases, they will lose more in benefits than their spouse is able to provide in new income to the household.

While you would think (hope?) cliffs and penalties are rare, they are not. Instead, they are baked into the structure of nearly all welfare programs and many of the cliffs are severe. It’s also important to know that welfare recipients don’t face a single cliff or a single penalty, but they face cliffs and penalties at a number of different points as they have additional income from working or through marriage.

Why does it matter?

For nonprofit leaders, the cliffs and penalties may mean that our clients are locked into poverty for much longer than they would be otherwise and despite our best efforts. For workforce development nonprofits, cliffs could be the underlying reason why your clients don’t pick up additional work hours when they are offered or seem less than excited when they are offered a good promotion. In extreme cases, clients may quit jobs that seemed like a perfect fit simply because they panic when they learn they may lose a major benefit – like housing or childcare.

For nonprofits trying to help strengthen family relationships, marriage penalties may be driving behavior that is otherwise inexplicable, like seemingly happy couples refusing to marry or live in the same home. These dynamics can lead to stress for the couples affected and to a sense that a parent (usually the father) has abandoned the family when, if the system would allow it, he would be in the home. In these cases, children pay the biggest price.

What can you do about it?

Fortunately, we have created that allows anyone to see when a particular family can expect to experience benefit cliffs as they earn more money through work. For nonprofits working with these families, you now have a tool (available for 10 states, with two more on the way) that will allow you to help your clients plan for the future. In some cases, knowing when cliffs are likely to happen will allow your clients to seek a larger raise that will help them bypass or leapfrog a cliff. In other cases, maybe the answer is seeking additional training or certifications that will get your client into a different payscale entirely – one that avoids the cliffs.

In the coming weeks, we will be adding a tool that will allow users to see the impact of penalties on couples who decide to marry. We will also be incorporating a solutions tool that will allow anyone to see how reforming our government benefit programs can actually eliminate cliffs and penalties entirely, giving recipients every reason to pursue work and form stable households.

For GCO, it is this last point – reforming the system – that remains the ultimate goal. In the meantime, we are looking for ways to mitigate the harm caused by the welfare system, so that as many people as possible can escape the system and break cycles of poverty now.

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

The post Why Nonprofits Should Care and What to Do appeared first on For Opportunity.

GUARANTEED POVERTY

We need to have a frank discussion about how we view our fellow man and what we want for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.

At the forefront of this discussion are policies that seem to want to help people. Policies that are labeled “anti-poverty” or expand social services indeed have good intent. However, I suggest these policies often are pandering and dismissive of the value of the person we hope to help.��

For instance,. On its face, this sounds like a way to help those in need find help. But as we dive deeper we begin to see that we are subsidizing rather than alleviating poverty. It reeks of the idea that we would simply pay off the poor and want nothing substantive for them.

INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY STUDY

Understanding how poverty is perceived by those in it, so that we can better understand how to address it.

VIEW OUR FINDINGS

HOW DO WE VIEW THOSE IN NEED?

We must realize that these actions cause us to look at our neighbor as a purely numerical transaction— a phrase often used to push against the ideas of capitalism, but one resoundingly relevant when we discuss these guaranteed incomes. The idea is that a person who is homeless or without work deserves to only be given a small living wage to simply survive.��

And survive on what? The quality of housing affordable on such services is usually in dangerous areas or ill-suited for long-term living. The quality of food affordable often leads to obesity or unhealthy lifestyles. Yes, they survive but we have afforded them no dignity or purpose in life.

The bottom line is the utter lack of compassion or humanity in this response. The idea that we view fellow humans as so incomplete that we ask nothing of them. This mentality simply says, “You can give us nothing so we will expect nothing of you.”

As a society, we have sold this idea as moral or righteous, but we sell short the potential of the people we hope to serve. We have robbed them of being fulfilled and feeling successful.

I am in no way saying that people hold no value unless they have a job. But what I am saying is that everyone has something to contribute and a way to bring value to those around them. More importantly, we desire to contribute and find self-worth in doing so.

DEFINING HUMAN FLOURISHING

We at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity refer to this as “human flourishing.” We seek to help ensure that everyone has access to it, no matter the circumstances of their birth. In doing so, we understand that flourishing will look different for each person. That is a beautiful thing.

Recently a famous YouTuber, Mark Rober, . Mark’s son will likely never hold a job or be able to do the same things 99% of people will but he still desires to contribute and bring value to those around him. So yes we will need to adapt our understanding of success and human flourishing, but I would challenge us to consider that merely existing is not flourishing. And expecting that you will not flourish shows a severe lack of compassion and empathy.

Compassion requires that we would want more for people. Not merely enough material possession to be appeased but to truly desire for human flourishing.

On the opposite end of flourishing is merely surviving with no hope or want for more. Hopelessness occurs when we expect nothing from someone.

This is why we must look at policies that do more than simply address a felt need. We must build systems that restore and promote dignity and purpose. They must not trivialize human value to a monetary transaction. Instead, they must instill hope, purpose, and an expectation of human flourishing.

BE PART OF BRINGING OPPORTUNITY TO OTHERS!

Each dollar you give is doubled and goes to support efforts to expand opportunities throughout Ģ����Ƶ.

GIVE TODAY

The post Guaranteed Income Subsidizes Poverty And Trivializes Those In Need appeared first on For Opportunity.

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By Corey Burres

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I drove through my neighborhood and saw dozens of tents lining the wooded area near my home. I realized there were families and single mothers living in these tents. My heart broke. How did we get here? When did we start to accept this for those in our communities?

I know from our work at Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) there are local and governmental services available. I know there are many community groups and philanthropic organizations working to address the basic needs of shelter, food, and health. But I question if these systems address the issue of dignity.

Dignity is a word we throw around a lot at GCO. It’s a core value for our team, but it is also a core component of how we choose to view others. It is a driver, yes, but more importantly, it is a goal. We can address needs and make some headway, but until we restore dignity to individuals we will continue to fight an endless battle. Government safety-net programs are not designed to restore dignity. That is a problem.

Without finding self-worth and dignity in what we do, we continue to seek “just enough.” If we truly want those around us to thrive, we must create systems that seek to do more than simply appease a need. We must create systems that see the value of peoples’ humanity and desire for them to move into a vibrant and thriving future.

The fact of the matter is that systems like Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs are not designed to move people into a better life. Instead, they are a stop-gap that simply meets an immediate or temporary need.

If we truly want those around us to thrive, we must create systems that seek to do more than simply appease a need. We must create systems that see the value of peoples’ humanity and desire for them to move into a vibrant and thriving future.

In the case of temporary unemployment or hard times, this is sufficient and works as intended. It’s why many people tout the effectiveness of these programs. They do work—for some.

However, in the case of intergenerational or long-term poverty, the result is marginalized groups systemically stuck—trapped in dependency and without hope.

And that is what I see when I pass these tent cities. These are our neighbors who have surrendered to a way of life, one that we desperately hope our own loved ones will never experience. The tragedy is that our political leaders have done just enough to appease them.

True compassion says we should hope for them to move off government assistance programs and feel the sense of dignity and belonging we want for everyone.

Over the next month, we are going to highlight changes to assistance programs that will remove the traps in our safety-net systems. We will highlight local support networks that view the individual through the lens of the dignity that they deserve. And we will bring together the business and community leaders leading the charge at Breakthrough.

Will you join us?

The post Welfare Without Dignity Doesn’t Work appeared first on For Opportunity.

We had an unusual experience last week, with President Obama participating in, of all things, a with three leading public intellectuals, , and . The conversation ranged pretty widely, with a number of issues coming up, some of which didn’t get all that much attention. I know that there were some hot button moments, which received a good bit of radio and television air time, not to mention editorial and blogosphere commentary, but I’d rather take a deep breath and proceed just a bit more calmly.

Let me begin by observing that the President displayed flashes of the persona that made him at least somewhat appealing when he first appeared on the national scene. He at least said he wanted to get past the partisan divide where one side spoke only about economics and the other only about culture:

The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don’t care anything about culture or parenting or family structures, and that’s one stereotype.�� And then you’ve got cold-hearted, free market, capitalist types who are reading Ayn Rand and…think everybody are moochers.�� And I think the truth is more complicated.

I think that there are those on the conservative spectrum who deeply care about the least of these, deeply care about the poor; exhibit that through their churches, through community groups, through philanthropic efforts, but are suspicious of what government can do.�� And then there are those on the left who I think are in the trenches every day and see how important parenting is and how important family structures are, and the connective tissue that holds communities together and recognize that that contributes to poverty when those structures fray, but also believe that government and resources can make a difference in creating an environment in which young people can succeed despite great odds.

And it seems to me that if coming out of this conversation we can have a both/and conversation rather than either/or conversation, then we’ll be making some progress.

I agree: let’s talk about poverty in terms both of the economic straits in which individuals and families find themselves and of the culture (embodied in the media, schools, and government programs, as well as in churches and other community institutions) that should, but doesn’t necessarily, encourage responsibility for oneself, for one’s partner(s), and for any and all children one brings into the world.

Here are some takeaways from the conversation. There was, in the first instance, a good bit of talk about the disparity of opportunities available to those at different ends of the economic spectrum. Robert Putnam set the tone here, alluding to evidence from that our poor kids get much less support and have much less to which to look forward than do their wealthy counterparts:

[Y]ou can see it in measures of family stability.�� You can see it in measures of the investments that parents are able to make in their kids, the investments of money and the investments of time.�� You can see it in the quality of schools kids go to.�� You can see it in the character of the social and community support that kids — rich kids and poor kids are getting from their communities.

The President responded to this opening by referring to an idealized portrait of community that Putnam draws in the book, one where, despite class differences, everyone shares in the same social and public institutions:

[W]hen I read Bob’s book, the first thing that strikes you is when he’s growing up in Ohio, he’s in a community where the banker is living in reasonable proximity to the janitor at the school.�� The janitor’s daughter may be going out with the banker’s son.�� There are a set of common institutions — they may attend the same church; they may be members of the same rotary club; they may be active at the same parks — and all the things that stitch them together.�� And that is all contributing to social mobility and to a sense of possibility and opportunity for all kids in that community.

Perhaps that was true in some ethnically and religiously homogeneous small towns and urban neighborhoods— is eloquent on this subject—but I have my doubts about it as a sweeping generalization. While, for example, private schools did not proliferate until the 1960s, they have long been available to Roman Catholics (as an alternative to the erstwhile weak-tea Protestantism of the public schools) and to the very wealthy (think Phillips Exeter, Andover, and Choate in the Northeast, as well as Westminster and Woodward here in Atlanta). And anyone who has lived in the South would know that there at least once was a socioeconomic pecking order among Protestant churches, with an enormous contrast between, say, the up-market Episcopalians and the down-market Primitive Baptists. (Indeed, if anything, the decline of the mainline churches and the rise of evangelicalism have served to counteract this phenomenon, so that a much broader socioeconomic spectrum is represented in the pews in many churches on any given Sunday).

Nevertheless, there are three ways community thus conceived can arguably promote social mobility. There are, first of all, the cultural norms of hard work and personal responsibility that can be shared across class boundaries. In this respect, so-called positive role models are not distant abstractions, but personal acquaintances. Peer pressure doesn’t come from (or only from) local gang members but—one hopes—from high-achieving classmates and neighbors. Second, the networks of opportunity readily available to the affluent become open to classmates and acquaintances who don’t have access to them on their own. Finally, because everyone participates in these public institutions, everyone cares about their continued vitality. Thus, for example, parents get involved in PTA’s, care about school board elections, and are active in promoting “investments” (one of the President’s favorite words) in public education. In the Georgetown conversation, we hear something about the last two considerations, but very little (and in any event not enough) about the first.

But if this talk about community isn’t simply to be a nostalgic reminiscence about or longing for something we’ve lost, it behooves us to ask what, practically, we can do to restore it (or preserve it where it still exists).

It would, for example, be impossible—not to say highly undesirable—to compel everyone to attend public schools. While I could imagine some political leaders succumbing to that temptation and trying to regulate private schools out of existence, to the degree that education remains primarily a state and local responsibility, I can’t imagine such a policy sweeping the nation.���� And even if—horror of horrors—private options were taken off the table, people have historically voted with their feet, exercising “school choice” by moving into a neighborhood whose public schools are attractive. Political efforts to negate the effects of private residential choices haven’t found favor with voters or, for that matter, with the Supreme Court.

This is where, I humbly submit, school choice programs that empower especially lower income people to place their children in better schools actually show some promise of making the aforementioned benefits of community available. Children can escape an essentially homogeneous peer culture that is inimical to achievement and move into schools where parents are involved and there are positive role models. Too bad the President and his party consistently oppose school choice, preferring all too often simply to demand more funding for public schools, as if government by itself can compensate for the social ills that inevitably accompany dysfunctional communities.

A similar statism is implicit in the President’s comments about the role of religion in dealing with the problem of poverty. Here’s what he said:

[W]hen I think about my own Christian faith and my obligations, it is important for me to do what I can myself — individually mentoring young people, or making charitable donations, or in some ways impacting whatever circles and influence I have.�� But I also think it’s important to have a voice in the larger debate.�� And I think it would be powerful for our faith-based organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion.

This may sound self-interested because there have been — these are areas where I agree with the evangelical community and faith-based groups, and then there are issues where we have had disagreements around reproductive issues, or same-sex marriage, or what have you.�� And so maybe it appears advantageous for me to want to focus on these issues of poverty, and not as much on these other issues….

There is great caring and great concern, but when it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue, when you’re talking in your congregations, what’s the thing that is really going to capture the essence of who we are as Christians, or as Catholics, or what have you, that this is oftentimes viewed as a “nice to have” relative to an issue like abortion.�� That’s not across the board, but there sometimes has been that view, and certainly that’s how it’s perceived in our political circles.

While President Obama didn’t go as far as in the relative weight of religious emphasis on poverty as opposed to social issues, these remarks do imply that, in his view, social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage play a distractingly large role in the outward-looking role of all too many Christian churches. He does hedge and qualify his statement a bit, but the larger point is that, so far as “our political circles” are concerned, the church’s witness on poverty takes a back seat to its positions on abortion and same-sex marriage. As , , but it reveals something about what sorts of actions matter to the President. Furthermore, I’ve that the President’s principal interest in faith-based groups seems to be mobilizing public support for government action, rather than encouraging their activity as an alternative or supplement to government. He doesn’t see—or at least doesn’t want to highlight—what churches and other faith-based organizations can do as actors in civil society, as possible alternatives to government action. We aren’t supposed to help ourselves or help one another but through the instrumentality of the government. The national conversation on poverty should largely be devoted to what government can do.

I’d like to conclude with a reflection on perhaps President Obama’s most solid contribution to the conversation:

[W]e can all stipulate that the best antipoverty program is a job, which confers not just income, but structure and dignity and a sense of connection to community.�� Which means we have to spend time thinking about the macro-economy, the broader economy as a whole.

He’s right in every facet of his statement. Having a job is not just about the income, but also about the self-discipline that comes from having to meet obligations to employers, customers, and clients and the dignity that comes from being able to take care of oneself and one’s family. And these relationships are the backbone of every community. I do not mean hereby to deprecate the institutions of civil society—churches, neighborhood associations, and so on—but they don’t prosper without the dignified contributions (both personal and financial) of more or less self-reliant individuals.

While it is clear that our economy hasn’t in recent years generated enough good jobs to lift our least fortunate brothers and sisters out of poverty, I found little in President Obama’s remarks that gave me much confidence that he held the key to success in this regard. We can’t redistribute our way to a better future, so a simple—almost demagogic—focus on inequality won’t do. As Arthur Brooks argued—frequently and effectively, in my view—there is no substitute for a dynamic and productive economy as a generator of wealth. And, as he also argued, ensuring that everyone benefits requires making hard choices that our political classes haven’t demonstrated their willingness to make.

Perhaps conversations like the one that took place last week will provide an opening for further, deeper exchanges of views and for genuinely productive policy-making. But I’m sad to say that I’m not holding my breath.

The post Culture, Economics, and Poverty appeared first on For Opportunity.

A week ago today the city of Baltimore was . The media storm following the protests and riots is the latest in a string of events that continue to orient our attention as a society to the lack of economic and social opportunity in America

David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, wrote an excellent piece on a week ago. Brooks draws attention to the importance of the social dynamics that undercut attempts to improve the conditions of urban poor through increased spending and policy solutions.

What Brooks notes in his article, and many others recognize, is that when dealing with poverty, one must deal with the causes of poverty and the psychological and developmental effects of poverty. One-size-fits-all programs fail to do justice to the ways in which individual circumstances vary. Some people have short-term needs – such as gas to get to work – while others need more structured and long-term oriented assistance – such as acquiring the skills necessary to compete in a very competitive job market. This requires panoply of social programs specifically targeted to lift people out of poverty for good.

A safety net in good working order is crucial to a healthy economy, but poor families don’t just need help – they need the right kind of help. Giving people money really does make them better off. Yes, it’s better to have more money to buy groceries and other basic necessities, but improving inequality through handouts has no consistent correlation with upward mobility.

of the fact that getting more money from the government doesn’t really make you less poor, and a testament to the fact that poverty is enabled to linger through the impoverishment of our social relations.

Click to read Brooks’ article.

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, .

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