FNS Documents & Resources

States have long served as incubators for testing strategies to help prevent program fraud. Based on an FNS partnership with 10 states, the "SNAP Fraud Framework" combines innovations in the use of analytics with concepts and practices from industry in order to more effectively detect potential fraud and improve administration and oversight.

This study developed innovative approaches to using nutrition labeling systems to incentivize healthy food choices by SNAP participants in retail settings. The approaches consider opportunities for using Front of Package and shelf labeling systems across all food categories and retail settings.

The Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 requires all federal agencies to calculate the amount of erroneous payments in federal programs and to periodically conduct detailed assessments of vulnerable program components. This 2012 assessment of the family daycare homes component of CACFP provides a national estimate of the share of the roughly 125,000 participating FDCHs that are approved for an incorrect level of per meal reimbursement, or reimbursement "tier" for their circumstances. 

Trafficking of SNAP 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 2009 through 2011.

This report provides improper payment estimates for fiscal year 2011 using a methodology for “aging” the 2005 bookend study. The methodology yields nationally representative estimates of the number of vendors that over- and undercharged and the amount of over- and undercharges across all WIC vendors.

This letter is to follow-up on our earlier correspondence in which we requested that Craigslist post a notice regarding the illegality of selling SNAP benefits on its website and/or that SNAP benefits be added to its prohibited items list.

The USDA has determined that the sale or offer to sell SNAP benefits in public or online is an intentional program violation and has issued policy guidance to that effect. We have received complaints that individuals are using Facebook accounts to post advertisements and make offers to buy or sell SNAP benefits.

This letter is to follow-up on conversations the USDA Office of General Counsel had with your legal team in 2010, in which we requested that eBay post a notice regarding the illegality of selling SNAP benefits on its website and/or that SNAP benefits be added to its prohibited items list.

USDA Efforts to Reduce Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

The sale or exchange of SNAP benefits for anything other than food sold by an authorized retailer is illegal – and is neither accepted nor tolerated by USDA.