The reason?

The lower the fraud rate, the lower the share a state government has to pick up.

From Rich Miller’s Sunday Chicago Sun-Times column:

Won’t be easy, but Illinois has a chance to mitigate SNAP cuts

Gov. JB Pritzker frequently touts his administrative prowess, so this gives him a measurable opportunity to prove it.

If current trends continue, Illinois will have to pay 15% of the total SNAP benefit costs, which, according to the governor’s office, would be $705 million a year.

The reason the state is on the hook for 15% of benefit costs is because of its high SNAP payment error rate, which stood at 11.56% in fiscal year 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state’s error rates for underpayments to SNAP beneficiaries was less than 1%, but its overpayment error rate was 10.6%.

The new federal law requires that states with SNAP payment error rates of 10% or higher must pay 15% of SNAP benefit costs. The state will struggle mightily to afford that, so lots of people may lose their food aid if things don’t change.

Eleven states, including New York and New Jersey plus the District of Columbia, had higher error rates than Illinois, but 38 had lower error rates.

If Illinois could reduce its error rate to above 8% but below 10% — on par with states like Michigan, Ohio and Texas then it would pay 10% of benefit costs, or $470 million a year.

Reducing Illinois’ error rate to a recent 15-year average of what the Food Resource and Action Center says was 7.1%, would make its annual penalty 5% of benefit costs — or $235 million a year.

And if Pritzker’s administration could decrease the error rate below 6%, then the state would face no additional state penalties at all.

Illinois achieved those lower error rates five times between 2011 and 2017.