President Trump has put states on the hook for waste, fraud, and abuse in the nation’s food stamps, known officially as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Landmark legislation signed by the president last year requires the states to pay a share of the program’s costs if more than 6% of their food-stamp outlays are spent in error. States controlled by Democrats are, by and large, the worst offenders. For anyone who has followed the burgeoning and massive welfare fraud scandals in Minnesota and California, this trend is no surprise. And if my home state of Michigan is any indication, these deep blue states aren’t nearly as serious as they should be about rooting out fraud and protecting taxpayers.
That’s my conclusion after digging into food stamp fraud in Michigan. Under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the state refuses to share food-stamp data with the Trump administration, so I sought information through public-records requests. I discovered that the state has tolerated the blatant abuse of this taxpayer-funded program by people who don’t even live in Michigan.
According to state and local records, over the past three years, Michigan has paid more than $4 million in food-stamp funding to people with out-of-state addresses. State law requires food-stamp recipients to live in the state, for obvious reasons. It’s one thing to let Michigan residents use their food-stamps across state lines – many people live near the borders with Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. It’s another thing entirely to pay money to people who don’t even live in Michigan.
Michigan officials have known about this problem for years, yet they’ve allowed this theft of government services to grow worse over time. In 2024, the state sent $1.6 million to out-of-state addresses, rising to $1.9 million in 2025. Last year, Michigan sent this money to 3,177 out-of-state addresses. Based on data from the first three months of this year, that number should reach 3,700 by the end of 2026.
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