For three years, Tovia O’Neal simultaneously received food stamps, cash welfare, and Medicaid benefits in both Texas and New Mexico. Using a relative’s address, she raked in nearly $50,000 in benefits from New Mexico alone, on top of the welfare benefits she received in Texas. An investigation prompted by the Office of Inspector General led to a 2012 indictment and eventual plea agreement.
Sadly, stories like O’Neal’s are far too common. Thousands of individuals across the country receive welfare benefits in states they no longer live in, in states they’ve never lived in, or even in multiple states at once.
Years ago, the federal government set up the Public Assistance Reporting Information System, or PARIS, to help catch some of these issues. But as the Department of Health and Human Services reports, state participation is “limited” and the system’s effectiveness is “inconsistent.” Many states don’t use the system at all for food stamps, and auditors warn that the information in the system is incomplete. Even when states participate, the system only flags individuals receiving benefits in multiple states after the fraud has already occurred.
Recognizing the limits of the existing system, five southeastern states banded together to try a new approach. These states, led by Mississippi, created the National Accuracy Clearinghouse to share eligibility data with each other. When an individual applies for food stamps in Mississippi, welfare offices in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana get notified, and vice versa. Instead of trying to chase after fraudsters who were already collecting benefits in multiple states, the new system was designed to stop the fraud from happening in the first place.
The results have been remarkable. In Mississippi, for example, the new system cut down on more than 80 percent of cases where an individual was enrolled in food stamps in Mississippi and one of the other partner states. Even cases that managed to avoid initial detection didn’t last as long. Prior to implementation, most individuals flagged for dual enrollment in Alabama were still enrolled two months later and nearly 40 percent were still enrolled four months later. But after implementing the new system, fewer than 1 percent of those flagged for dual enrollment in Alabama were still enrolled two months later. None were still enrolled four months later.
The federal government is now poised to build on that success. President Trump proposed taking the five-state pilot nationwide in his 2019 budget. According to the Department of Agriculture, this move would save taxpayers more than $1 billion over the next decade. And the House Committee on Agriculture’s 2018 Farm Bill calls for the USDA to create a “duplicative enrollment database” that would require states to share data to ensure that individuals cannot collect food stamps in multiple states at the same time.
This common-sense proposal, supported by a whopping 88 percent of voters, has the power to prevent fraud and preserve resources for the truly needy. It’s a proposal that can, and should, be supported by those on both sides of the political aisle.
Welfare fraud threatens the safety net for the most vulnerable and wastes a massive amount of tax dollars. It’s time to proactively fight it in all states, not just five.
Jonathan Ingram is the vice president of research at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
