Jayeleauna Lewis and her 3-year-old daughter are from Indiana.When Lewis learned that her state does not replace stolen benefits, she recalled a SNAP worker recommending she go to food pantries for the rest of the month.
Octavio Jones for NPR hide caption As Jayeleauna Lewis listened to an automated voice system describe the unauthorized charges on her food assistance card, a pit formed in her stomach.She pictured her 3-year-old daughter and their empty fridge back home.On the 13th of each month, Lewis, a 20-year-old single mom from Indiana, receives $486 from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
But in September, just minutes after funds were loaded onto her account, they disappeared." I was heartbroken because that's how I feed my daughter," she says.Lewis is unsure how her benefits were stolen, but cybersecurity experts say she might have been a victim of skimming — when thieves extract card information from payment terminals and drain money from accounts.In recent years, SNAP has become a fraud magnet for criminals who view both the nation's poorest Americans and the government program's outdated technology as easy to exploit.The U.S.
Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General projected that, over the past two years alone, $233 million may have been lost due to food assistance theft — largely driven by skimming.And in most states, stolen benefits are not replaced.The Trump administration has vowed to eliminate SNAP fraud, adding that it's preventing the program from serving those who truly need it.
But states' efforts to curb skimming are likely to get harder due to federal funding cuts that began earlier this month, according to Kathryn Larin, a director at the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency that has been examining SNAP fraud prevention efforts for years....