Either way, the waste fraud and abuse goes far beyond giving benefits to illegals. People on the program barter and sell their benefits for cash. If they have that much extra, their benefits need to be cut. Be tough and do it already!
Neither illegal nor legal immigrants should be able to get SNAP benefits. If you can’t take care of yourself you shouldn’t have been allowed into the country.
What government funded program isn’t corrupt and loaded with fraud?
There should be a work requirement for government food. And if you refuse to work, you should be sterilized. Welfare is a generational cycle -- people grow up in families where the "family business" is collecting welfare. You need to break that cycle.
Just change (lower) the financial standard to receive benefits.
I’m retired (SSA & small pension).
My wife will work another 3 years (70).
At that time we will be eligible for “welfare” even though our assets will be in the 6-figure range.
We won’t apply but ...
A drop in the bucket for the excessive benefits all around.
The program should be limited to widows. Women should wait until they are married and their husband can support them before they have children. SNAP rewards irresponsibility, creating more of it. We are subsidizing illegitimacy and then wonder why we have so much of it.
If your kids get free meals at school, your benefits are cut the commensurate amount.
You will receive specific food items, not just cash.
Food will be low cost and nutritious. Think MRE.
Lots of rice and beans.
You want to eat off the taxpayers, the taxpayers decide what you get to eat.
Get the government out of the charity business...roll it back to faith based institutions...like it used to be.
They use the cash to buy drugs an alcohol - there is no way to separate them from legitimate needy, as they will qualify for low-income assistance, no matter where the income cut off is placed.
Go Go DOGE
The cessation of minting pennies has hit the retail grocery industry and caused a lot of issues for SNAP-authorized retailers.
It's interesting, and puzzling - that the government never issued guidance to retail grocers, knowing that the penny shortage would inevitably cause these exact problems.
SNAP-authorized retailers can't round up or down to the nearest nickel, because this would violate federal law.
It's a stretch to think that the government had no clue that, one - there would be a penny shortage, and, two - that it would cause confusion in the retail grocery industry. It's hard to make an argument that this was just an oversight.
The letter...
October 14, 2025
The Honorable Brooke Rollins
Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20250
Re: SNAP Equal Treatment Provisions Pertaining to Lack of Pennies
Dear Secretary Rollins:
As organizations representing SNAP-authorized retail food stores across the country, we write today with an extremely timely and critical request to provide retailers with flexibility under the SNAP equal treatment provisions. Because the U.S. Mint has ceased minting the penny, stores across the nation are experiencing an inability to provide exact change to cash-paying customers. We request immediate legal guidance from USDA to specifically stipulate that SNAP-authorized retail food stores are not in violation of the SNAP equal treatment provisions if the store rounds cash transactions to the nearest nickel.
The final minting of the 1-cent coin was in June at the directive of the U.S. Treasury Department, and the final inventory of these pennies was shipped to Federal Reserve regional distribution vaults in August. As of October 14, the ordering and depositing of pennies through 64 of 165 Federal Reserve vaults has been suspended due to diminished inventory. This means SNAP retailers across the country are not receiving an adequate supply of pennies to make exact change to cash-paying customers in our stores.
This permanent disruption in inventory of the 1-cent coin is beginning to cause a cascade of negative events in stores across the country and has a serious implication for SNAP retailers’ compliance with the SNAP equal treatment provisions. Without exact change, our stores have no choice but to round to the nearest nickel for cash customers, meaning these customers would be paying a slightly different price than SNAP customers. Our organizations are very concerned that when a SNAP retailer without exact change is forced into the position of rounding cash transactions it would be in violation of the SNAP equal treatment provisions, which as USDA is aware, prohibits both negative treatment (discriminatory practices) and preferential treatment (incentive practices).
Our organizations have also requested immediate guidance from Treasury, under which the function of minting our nation’s currency lies, on a myriad of other legal and operational issues that have arisen or have been compounded by ceasing the minting of the penny. USDA’s issuance of expedited guidance pertaining to SNAP equal treatment provisions and the interaction of rounding cash transactions due to the diminishing inventory of pennies is an extremely important aspect of these legal and compliance concerns.
Thank you for your immediate attention to this timely and critical request. We welcome the opportunity to discuss this request in more detail with you and your staff. Partnering together, we can avoid negative impacts on both SNAP participants and SNAP retailers.
Sincerely,
FMI – The Food Industry Association
Merchant Advisory Group
National Association of Convenience Stores
National Grocers Association
National Retail Federation
NATSO, Representing America's Travel Centers and Truck Stops
Retail Industry Leaders Association
SIGMA: America's Leading Fuel Marketers
Of course, right now there are no SNAP transactions. It's kind of interesting how the penny shortage has dovetailed into the SNAP suspension. Maybe just a coincidence...
I’m cool with finding fraud of course, but 322 hundred million out of a program that gives out 9 billion a month doesn’t seem like a five alarm fire.