Pursuit's Take
In fiscal year 2012, FNS distributed over $75 billion in SNAP benefits to low-income households and approved 246,565 retailer locations to participate in SNAP. FNS has seen a 41 percent increase in retail authorization over the last 5 fiscal years.
The integrity of SNAP is at risk because FNS does not consistently provide deterrents for trafficking. From a sample of 316 locations, OIG found that FNS did not properly determine potentially $6.7 million in penalties, and authorized 51 ineligible store owners, who redeemed over $5.3 million in benefits since 2006.