I commend you on your July 1 article on Maine’s SNAP program. Showing the human side of the program and the increased state administrative costs provided the clear impact of the federal changes.

However, I would like to expand on the “error rate.” First, the error rate is an administrative process to evaluate the quality of the program ‘s procedures and provide the administration information of where procedures may need to be improved. The “error rate” should not be confused with the fraud rate.

The “error rate” is unintentional mistakes by staff or recipients. The “error rate” can be an overpayment or underpayment. These mistakes are corrected by either increasing or decreasing the monthly allotment until the allotment has been corrected. The fraud rate is an intentional misleading by the recipient and it is criminal, handled by the judicial system.

For clarification, the SNAP recipient receives a monthly allotment that can be redeemed for groceries. The actual federal dollars are paid to the grocery stores. So, in addition to Mainers going hungry, America’s grocery stores will lose millions of dollars.

In closing, I think it is important to understand the average SNAP recipient receives between $5 and $6 per day for food while the people who voted to cut their benefit receive up to $79 per day for food while Congress is in session. Both are paid by taxpayer dollars.

Barbara Van Burgel
Mercer