Trafficking of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits occurs when SNAP recipients sell their benefits for cash to food retailers, often at a discount. Although trafficking does not increase costs to the federal government, it is a diversion of program benefits from their intended purpose of helping low-income families access a nutritious diet. This report, the latest in a series of periodic analyses, provides estimates of the extent of trafficking during the period 2012 through 2014.

This report provides the 2015 national estimate of incorrect payments for the meal reimbursements. The assessment calculates both overpayments and underpayments for FDCHs that earn either Tier 1 (higher) or Tier II (lower) reimbursements depending on the location and circumstances of the child care provider or the participating children.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of state agencies current peer group systems, and to provide guidance to state agencies on how to evaluate and update their systems. Specifically, it uses empirical analysis to identify one or more effective models for establishing vendor peer groups that could apply to most state agencies.

The NSLP offers free and reduced-price school meals to students from eligible households. Households with incomes at or below 130 percent of poverty are eligible for free meals, and households with incomes between 131 percent and 185 percent of poverty are eligible for reduced-price meals. Traditionally, to receive these benefits, households had to complete and submit application forms to schools or be directly certified. Direct certification, on the other hand, is a method of eligibility determination that does not require families to complete school meal applications. Instead, school officials use documentation from the local or state welfare agency that indicates that a household participates in AFDC or food stamps as the basis for certifying students for free school meals.

This report duplicates the precise methodology of the earlier analysis with more than 10,000 new investigations to generate an estimate for the 1996 - 1998 calendar year period.