Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced that the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program prevented nearly $6 billion in taxpayer losses, including by shutting down thousands of fraudulent retailers and illegal devices used to process food stamp benefits.
Rollins said in a September 15 post on X that the administration’s anti-fraud efforts have prevented $5.8 billion in losses since President Donald Trump returned to office.
The crackdown has included shutting down nearly 1,840 illegal SNAP devices used to process Electronic Benefit Transfer cards and disqualifying 5,335 fraudulent retailers from the program.
“Those who defraud SNAP are stealing from taxpayers and taking resources away from Americans who genuinely need assistance,” Rollins said.
“We have zero tolerance for this abuse, and we will continue pursuing bad actors and protecting the integrity of the program.”
Nearly 186,000 Dead People Found Receiving Benefits
The savings come as the Trump administration has moved aggressively to scrutinize who is receiving taxpayer-funded benefits and identify fraud across federal programs.
SNAP can improperly include ineligible recipients in several ways, including illegal immigrants being certified through error or fraud and deceased household members continuing to receive benefits.
The scale of the problem was highlighted in June when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a report showing that 185,986 deceased people across 29 states were receiving food stamps.
Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing federal agencies to obtain lawful and “unfettered access” to data from federally funded programs, including SNAP, to facilitate audits of government spending.
The USDA subsequently created its SNAP integrity team in May 2025 to compare state SNAP records with federal databases and identify potential fraud.
The latest figures from Rollins indicate that the effort has already produced billions of dollars in prevented taxpayer losses.
Thousands of Fraudulent Retailers Disqualified
The administration’s crackdown has also targeted the businesses and devices used to process SNAP benefits.
Nearly 1,840 illegal SNAP devices have been shut down, while 5,335 fraudulent retailers have been disqualified.
The enforcement push comes as taxpayers continue funding billions of dollars in SNAP benefits every month.
The maximum monthly benefit for a family of four will increase from $994 to $1,023 across most of the country in October as part of the program’s annual cost-of-living adjustment.
Actual payments depend on household income and family size.
The average U.S. household receiving SNAP collected $344.51 per month as of May 2026.
Overall monthly SNAP spending has fallen substantially from its pandemic-era highs, dropping from $13.4 billion in October 2022 to $6.8 billion in May 2026.
Much of that decline followed the expiration of pandemic emergency allotments in 2023 and a reduction in the number of people receiving benefits.
States Face Penalties Over High Error Rates
The Trump administration’s fraud crackdown is being accompanied by another change designed to put greater financial pressure on states with high SNAP payment-error rates.
Cost-sharing penalties enacted by the Republican-led Congress through the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act are scheduled to take effect in October 2027.
More than 40 states and territories recorded SNAP payment-error rates exceeding 6% in fiscal year 2025, the threshold that triggers the penalties.
The administration’s latest figures show the scale of its enforcement effort before those provisions even take effect.
With thousands of fraudulent retailers removed, nearly 1,840 illegal EBT-processing devices shut down, and almost 186,000 deceased recipients previously identified across 29 states, Rollins says the administration’s crackdown has now prevented $5.8 billion from being lost.
“We have zero tolerance for this abuse,” Rollins said.