Rachel Gresler tells committee SNAP improper payments totalled $184 billion; GAO estimate up to $521 billion

Rachel Gresler, senior research fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told a congressional committee that the federal government reported "A $184,000,000,000" in improper payments last year and that a Government Accountability Office estimate shows taxpayers could lose as much as $521,000,000,000 per year to improper payments and related losses. She said those figures underscore a lack of accountability for federal benefit spending.

Gresler framed the problem as an accountability gap: "The American people must report every dollar they earn to the federal government," she said, but there is "remarkably little accountability" for roughly $4,200,000,000,000 the federal government redistributes across about 100 federal benefit programs. She pointed to SNAP as a key example, saying enrollment has surged over about 15 years while the poverty rate has declined, and that improper-payment rates and totals have risen alongside program growth.

Gresler also cited program-level statistics: she said SNAP had a reported improper-payment rate of 10.9% last year — "equal to $10,200,000,000" — and argued that the current federal system effectively backstops state differences in compliance (she contrasted a 3% example for South Dakota with 25% for Alaska). Her testimony did not include a committee response on the record to those figures.