Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on October 31, 2025 in Washington, DC The Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives held the press conference on the 31st day of the government shutdown to discuss food stamp programs running out. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ call for scrutiny of the 42 million people receiving federal food assistance has puzzled advocates and lawmakers, just days after recipients began seeing benefits that stalled during the government shutdown.
A week after Rollins first publicly raised the startling idea that every recipient would have to reapply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often called food stamps, in an interview on the right-wing Newsmax network, there are no details yet.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture asked for an explanation, citing existing requirements and suggesting that further changes to SNAP rules could be coming.
“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure that the fraud, waste and incessant abuse of SNAP comes to an end,” a USDA spokesperson wrote Wednesday. “Fraud rates have only been assumed so far, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard household recertification processes is part of this work. As is ongoing analysis of state data, further regulatory work and improved collaboration with states.”
The 2008 SNAP law leaves states responsible for administration. This role includes regularly ensuring that low-income individuals in the program meet eligibility requirements. However, the law allows states to determine how often this happens.
“It’s not clear what she would propose that would be different from what’s already happening,” said Katie Bergh, senior food aid policy analyst at the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
One interpretation of Rollins’ comments is that she would remove all 42 million people from the SNAP rolls and ask them to resubmit their applications. Bergh said that would cause people to lose money they need for food. About 40% of those enrolled in SNAP are children.
“If she proposes that they somehow repeat this process for more than 40 million people who have already proven their eligibility and already have to re-certify their eligibility on a regular basis, that would be quite duplicative and would likely create significant paper backlogs that would cause eligible people to lose the food assistance they need,” Bergh said.
Government critics have suggested that while the comments are unlikely to lead to policy changes, they will sow more confusion about a program that was used as a political signal during the record-breaking government shutdown that ended this month.
If people applied again, it would underscore the Trump administration’s opposition to it Nearly $100 billion programwhich accounts for 70% of federal food assistance. USDA says The average SNAP household received a monthly benefit of $332 in fiscal year 2023, or $177 per person, based on the average SNAP household size of 1.9 people.
“Secretary Rollins and the Trump Administration have cut food assistance to 42 million Americans multiple times this year,” U.S. House Agriculture Committee member Angie Craig said in a statement to States Newsroom on Wednesday. “Now they have shown once again that they do not understand the program.”
What did Rollins say?
In the Nov. 13 interview on Newsmax, Rollins said SNAP was affected by widespread fraud, pointing to data that 29 predominantly Republican-run states submitted to the department. Obtaining data from the 21 other states would give the department the opportunity to completely redesign the program, she said.
“Can you imagine what we will find when we get our hands on the blue state data?” she said. “It will give us a platform and a path to fundamentally rebuild this program, to make everyone reapply for their benefits, to make sure that anyone who receives a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps is literally at risk and cannot survive without it. And that’s the next step here.”
In an interview Monday on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromo asked Rollins about the move to get recipients to “reapply.”
“Business as usual is over,” Rollins responded in part. “The status quo no longer exists. We know the SNAP program is rife with fraud.”
She added that protection against fraud would assist those the program is intended to serve.
The comments sparked widespread confusion about what Rollins specifically meant.
When asked about the initiative during a news conference Thursday, Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, said she wasn’t sure how it would work and predicted that Rollins would be blamed for the current low fraud rate in the future.
“We’re hearing off the record that people may not know what the hell they’re talking about,” she said. “In fact, I think they’re trying to acknowledge the already very strict standards and the actually low fraud rate in the SNAP program…So we can’t really find a plan there. I’m not even sure there are concepts of a plan there.”
In response to a U.S. Newsroom request this week for details about the initiative, the USDA issued a statement that did not answer how the department would proceed or what authority it would be under, but that Rollins said it was about curbing fraud in the program.
Spokespeople did not respond to follow-up questions Thursday or a request to respond to Craig’s comments.
Low fraud rate
Program experts say fraud is not a widespread problem for SNAP.
An April report The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that retailers illegally traded about 1.6% of SNAP benefits in the 2015 to 2017 fiscal years.
Fraud by households applying for SNAP, which appears to be the main target of Rollins’ proposal, is even lower.
According to a USDA reportAround 26,000 applications were forwarded for official review or prosecution on suspicion of fraud. That number represents about 0.1% of the 22.7 million households participating in the program, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Long-standing data sources suggest that intentional fraud by participants is rare,” Bergh said.
At Thursday’s press conference, Craig called Rollins’ comments “bullsh*t” and “propaganda.”
“Secretary Rollins goes on TV and talks about the whole scam,” she said. “This most effective anti-hunger program in our history has a fraud rate of 1.6%. It is actually one of the most effective and best-run programs in the country…The nonsense this administration is spewing is outrageous.”
More targeted reforms
Even experts who advocate for SNAP reforms say claims fraud isn’t a major problem.
Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said high-net-worth individuals can receive SNAP benefits but are not committing fraud.
“Some of the problems with SNAP … are not due to fraud or abuse, but rather due to poor program rules,” Boccia said.
Boccia also pointed to an “incentive misalignment” inherent in the state-federal program. States have little incentive to control payments because the federal government funds the program, she said.
Forcing all beneficiaries to reapply would likely reduce the program’s costs by reducing the number of its beneficiaries, including by crowding out higher earners who may not feel that the benefits they don’t actually need are worth the arduous reapplication process, Boccia said.
But it would also cause a percentage of low-income earners to drop out of the program and leave many affected by the administrative backlog that would come with processing tens of millions of fresh applications, she said.
Shutdown, the massive, handsome bill and confusion
Bergh said Rollins’ comments were “additional insult” because they come after Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump signed a sweeping tax cutting and spending bill that is expected to shrink federal SNAP spending by $187 billion over 10 years. The law imposed work requirements on many SNAP recipients and shifted some costs to the states.
This was followed by the six-week shutdown a dizzying back and forth about whether SNAP benefits would be paid for November.
“There has been great chaos, confusion and unrest for both states and participants over the past few weeks, primarily due to the shutdown, but also because the administration simultaneously required states to implement many of the Reconciliation Act’s SNAP cuts,” Bergh said.
Craig also said in her statement that Rollins’ comments would harm the people who need the program.
“I am amazed at the secretary’s negligent disregard for the hungry seniors and children who can afford food thanks to this program,” she said.
Sara Naomi Bleich, a professor of public health policy at Harvard University, said in a telephone interview that the confusion caused by Rollins’ comments had exacerbated the hardships created by the Republican reconciliation bill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“The big picture with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is that this tidal wave is basically hitting low-income families,” said Bleich, who worked at the USDA during the Obama and Biden administrations. “You’re going to lose Medicaid. You’re going to lose SNAP. There could be side effects on school meals. This is going to be a really difficult time for families to navigate.”
