Alaska’s persistently high SNAP payment errors top nation for fourth consecutive year

Alaska’s food assistance program had the highest payment error rate in the country for a fourth straight year last year, according to rankings put out by the Agriculture Department late last month.

During the last federal fiscal year, which ended in September 2025, 23% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients in Alaska ended up with significantly more or significantly less in benefits than they should have, according to the federal report. The national average was 11%.

Alaska’s 2025 rate is down slightly from the 25% error rate in 2024 and down sharply from 2023 and 2022, when more than 55% of payments were in error. The vast majority of the errors were overpayments.

The Division of Public Assistance declined an interview request, but in a written statement, the agency said the error rate doesn’t tell the whole story.

“While the rate remains higher than we want it to be, the trend is moving in the right direction, and DPA is continuing to implement its federally approved investment plan to improve payment accuracy over time,” Department of Health spokesperson Mirna Estrada said in an email.

The agency attributed the persistently high error rate to the same factors driving delays in SNAP application processing: “complex eligibility rules, manual processes, and workforce challenges,” according to the statement. Delays can play a role in elevating the error rate.

Estrada said the division expects to continue improving its error rate thanks to an ongoing modernization effort scheduled to finish in 2028.

“Our modernization efforts including major IT upgrades, workflow improvements, and process redesign are cumulative, with each milestone building on the last. DPA is currently in an accelerated period of modernization, and while we expect the error rate to continue declining year after year, the most significant improvements will not be reflected until these modernization efforts are fully implemented,” she said.

Alaska has been fined millions for its high error rates in the past two years, and this year’s 23% figure could put the state on the hook for more federal penalties.

But even bigger costs could be coming down the pike.

President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, requires states for the first time to pay a portion of the cost of the historically federally funded benefits based on their error rate.

“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a news release announcing the rates. “USDA has taken historic action to help interested states curb SNAP waste, and I hope other states, regardless of political leadership, prioritize needy families and the American taxpayer over politics.”

That change would shift nearly $40 million in costs to the state if it applied to Alaska today.

But paradoxically, the sheer fact that Alaska’s error rate is so high leaves it exempt from that requirement until possibly as late as 2030, thanks to a carveout in the bill intended to win Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s support.

Despite the carveout, the state’s share of the cost to run the SNAP program is set to rise roughly $11 million each year, according to legislative fiscal analysts, thanks to a separate provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reducing the amount the federal government contributes towards administrative costs.

The USDA says the high error rate is not an indicator of fraud. ___

This story was originally published by Alaska Public Media and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.