As several public benefits fraud schemes continue to be uncovered in Massachusetts, the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) has seen a slight drop in its SNAP payment error rate, but still remains well-above federal standards.
A fiscal watchdog association warns that if this rate remains too high, the Bay State could be subject to steep federal penalties down the road.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the state’s SNAP payment error rate dropped from a whopping 14.10% in FY24 to 12.49% in FY25, good for an improvement of 1.61%. The national payment error rate was 10.62%, with Massachusetts remaining well above the national average.
This comes as a fiscal watchdog organization is warning that Massachusetts is looking down the barrel of steep federal penalties if it does not keep its SNAP payment error rate below the national average. The Fiscal Alliance Foundation points to new federal policy requiring states with payment error rates above the national average to cover 15% of its SNAP benefit costs.
“Improvement is better than moving in the wrong direction, but no one should confuse this with success. Massachusetts remains at the bottom of New England, and taxpayers could now be forced to shoulder an even larger share of the program’s costs because Beacon Hill has spent years ignoring systemic failures in the program,” said Fiscal Alliance Foundation Executive Director Paul Craney. “Public assistance programs should be administered responsibly, and reducing payment errors should be a top priority before taxpayers are asked to pay more.”
The DTA is blaming the Trump administration’s “unreasonable” policies and standard for the state’s error rate.
“The Department of Transitional Assistance takes payment accuracy seriously and made significant progress to lower the Payment Error Rate (PER) from FY24 to FY25. This is particularly notable as the national PER increased during this same time period,” DTA spokesperson Cecille Avila told the Herald
“Since then, we have undertaken significant efforts to reduce it even further, but the truth is that the Trump Administration is setting states up to fail with their unreasonable standards. Their goal is to pass costs down to states so that more people lose these essential benefits that they rely on to feed their families. Here in Massachusetts, we are going to keep doing everything we can to improve payment accuracy and protect people’s SNAP benefits,” Avila said.
Massachusetts received roughly $3 billion in federal SNAP funding in FY25, with that year’s payment error rate equating to about $37,470,000 in errant SNAP payments.
Of that amount, roughly $35,490,00 (11.83%) was in overpayments. In FY24, the state took in over $2.6 billion in federal SNAP funding, equivalent to $364 million in payment errors, of which $338 million was in overpayments.
The Bay State even recorded the highest SNAP payment error rate in New England in FY25 and remained among the worst-performing states in the country. USDA data shows Rhode Island finished FY25 at 12.42% payment error rate, followed by Maine at 10.81%, Connecticut at 9.08%, New Hampshire at 8.85%, and Vermont at 5.38%.
“When Massachusetts [officials] say they don’t have a problem, they clearly have a problem. Massachusetts is in the top five of the worst states in fraud detection and in payment error rate for SNAP,” Haywood Talcove, the CEO of data analytics company LexisNexis, told the Herald in February as part of continuing coverage on SNAP fraud in Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, Gov. Maura Healey refuses to hand over SNAP recipient information, including immigration status, to the Trump administration and the USDA for what they say is in order to root out waste, fraud and abuse. Healey’s office says the Trump administration has not provided assurances the information will not be given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Massachusetts slightly improved its payment error rate in FY23, Healey’s first year as governor, but still did not meet levels deemed acceptable by the federal government, improving from 11.7% in FY22 to 9.86% in FY23.
But even the Biden administration warned Healey about improving the DTA, sending a letter to the governor in FY24 that pointed to the DTA’s high payment error rate. Healey has recently ordered the implementation of chip-enabled EBT cards and has also added over 80 new employees to the DTA in recent months.
“Massachusetts managed to improve just enough to lose a temporary reprieve while remaining one of the worst-performing SNAP programs in America,” Craney added. “That is the worst of both worlds for taxpayers. The Commonwealth is still the worst in New England, still above the national average, and still facing the consequences of years of weak oversight and poor administration.”
This comes after the Herald reported a DTA whistleblower’s account of “rampant” SNAP fraud in Massachusetts and a lackluster response by the DTA to stop it. It also follows a Fiscal Alliance Foundation analysis, released earlier this year, that found over $1 billion in improper SNAP payments between 2022 and 2024.
“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,” DTA Communications Director Cecille Avila told the Herald in a written response to the Foundation’s study.
“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,” she said.
The Foundation says the latest USDA numbers call for stronger oversight, improved eligibility verification, and a renewed focus on program integrity across the state’s welfare programs.