WASHINGTON ― Democratic states that don’t hand over personal data on food aid recipients will lose administrative funding, the Trump administration said Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has demanded states provide personally identifying information about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries, such as names and Social Security numbers, in an effort to purge allegedly fraudulent recipients.
A federal court granted Democratic states’ request for an injunction blocking the demand in October, but USDA head Brooke Rollins said Tuesday noncompliant states would face consequences anyway.
“As of next week we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them” in the antifraud effort, Rollins said at the White House.
A spokesperson for the USDA said Rollins meant the USDA would withhold administrative funds, not money for food benefits themselves.
“USDA established a SNAP integrity team to analyze not only data provided by states, but to scrub all available information to end indiscriminate welfare fraud,” the spokesperson said, adding that 19 blue states are protecting “illegals” and “criminals” instead of providing the data.
“We have sent Democrat States yet another request for data, and if they fail to comply, they will be provided with formal warning that USDA will pull their administrative funds,” the spokesperson said.
More than 42 million Americans in 22 million households receive SNAP benefits averaging about $350 a month. The program became a political flashpoint during a government shutdown last month when the Trump administration refused to tap into a contingency fund to pay November’s benefits.
The federal government covers the full cost of SNAP benefits but only half of the administrative cost of running the program, which it splits with states. In the coming years, states will have to shoulder 75% of administrative costs, and as much as 15% of benefit costs, as a result of the tax cut law Republicans passed earlier this year.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, blasted Rollins for seemingly ignoring the federal court’s injunction.
“Her disregard for the law and willingness to lie through her teeth comes from the very top — the Trump administration is as corrupt as it is lawless, and I will not sit silently as she carries out the president’s campaign against Americans struggling to afford food in part because of this president’s tariffs and disastrous economic policies,” Craig said in an emailed statement.