Why SNAP Fraud Runs on Outdated Cards, and Why the Fix Is Stuck

Organized criminal rings target SNAP recipients because the government program's security features are outdated, NPR reports. The remedy is a technology upgrade, and upgrades cost money — at a moment when states' SNAP budgets are getting squeezed. That mismatch is the uncomfortable part of the story: the losses land on people receiving the benefits, while the decision about whether to pay for better security sits with state agencies working out what they can afford. Fraud prevention here isn't a question of knowing what to do. It's a question of who fronts the bill, and when the bill competes with everything else the same budget has to cover, the answer tends to be later.