Noem Forgets Negative Sign; Millions Eligible for Food Stamps Not Getting Help

South Dakota's "Welfare for me but not for thee" Congresswoman Kristi Noem said that one of the big problems we need to fix in the Farm Bill is that "Right now we have millions of people that get food stamps that don't meet income eligibility requirements."

Really? We mentioned last week that with all the hungry people in South Dakota, we need to get food stamps out to more people, not fewer.

But check this out:

• New Hampshire Food Bank reports they've boosted their state's SNAP participation to 75%. That's still 38,000-some eligible folks not receiving assistance.
• In Texas in 2011, 6.1 million people were eligible for food stamps, but only 4.1 million received assistance. That's two million going without benefits for which they qualify.
• The Food Research and Action Center says that 25% of Americans eligible for food assistance don't participate in the program. At March 2013 enrollment of 47.7 million, that would be 15.9 million Americans who are eligible for our help who aren't getting it.

I can't tell where Rep. Noem is getting her millions, though given her phrasing, I'll bet she's including folks who qualify under special rules by dint of having elderly or disabled household members. But given the continuing problems of hunger and unemployment and SNAP's efficiency and effectiveness, far from cutting Food Stamps for GOP ideological points, we should sustain and expand the program to help our neighbors and our economy.

Closely Related: According to the USDA, SNAP's payment error rate was record-low 3.8%. That includes a 0.81% rate of underpayment. So for every 100 cases where Uncle Sam handed out too much in food stamps, there were 27 cases where Uncle Sam handed out too little. And for every one of those error cases, there were 25 cases where they got the payment just right.

Additionally:

Relatively few SNAP errors represent dishonesty or fraud by recipi­ents. The overwhelming majority result from honest mistakes by recipients, eligibil­ity wor­kers, data entry clerks, or com­puter program­mers. In recent years, states have reported that about 60 percent of the dollar value of overpay­ments and almost 90 percent of the dollar value of underpayments were their fault, rather than recipients’ fault. Much of the rest of overpayments resulted from innocent errors by households facing a program with complex rules [Dottie Rosenbaum, "SNAP Is Effective and Efficient," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2013.03.11].

Rep. Kristi Noem could play Republican and fight to cut the bureaucracy and complex rules that prevent neighbors in need from getting the assistance to which they are entitled. Instead, she just waves her Norquist broom and cackles "I'll cut you, my pretties!"