Houston senior, 84, must get a job to repay $8,927 in SNAP benefits after state’s big mistake: ‘Hopefully they’ll be hiring old ladies’

"Hopefully they'll be hiring old ladies at that point," King said.

Under federal law, SNAP recipients must repay overpayments regardless of who caused the error — and nothing in the application warns them that could happen. "There's not really anything in the application that will warn them that there's the potential for the agency to make an error that would result in the overpayment like that," Marty Orozco, litigation director for public benefits at Lone Star Legal Aid, told ABC13.

When King couldn't pay, the U.S. Department of the Treasury warned it would begin garnishing up to 15% of her Social Security — about $200 a month — through the Treasury Offset Program (TOP) (2), a centralized federal debt-collection system that intercepted $197.9 million in delinquent SNAP debt in fiscal year 2024 alone.

A $10.5 billion problem, and climbing

King's case barely registers in the larger picture. The national SNAP overpayment rate hit 9.26% in fiscal year 2024, according to the USDA (3), with an overall payment error rate of 10.93%. A March 2025 report from the Government Accountability Office (4) found that SNAP accounted for $10.5 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2024, making it one of the five federal programs with the largest error totals.

The numbers have been moving in the wrong direction for over a decade. Analysis from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University (5) found overpayment rates rose from just over 2% in 2012 to 6% by 2019 — before the pandemic pushed them past 10%. A Congressional Research Service brief (6) attributed the post-2021 surge to pandemic-era policy changes, the return to pre-pandemic rules, and chronic understaffing at state agencies.

Only eight states met the 6% error threshold in fiscal year 2024. Forty-four states were required to submit corrective action plans, according to USDA. Texas posted a 5.77% overpayment rate and an overall error rate around 8% — better than average, but still above the federal threshold.

And these are errors, not fraud. The CRS brief makes that explicit: the payment error rate measures mistakes by agencies and recipients, not intentional lawbreaking.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act could make the problem worse

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, requires states to partially fund SNAP benefits for the first time if their error rate exceeds 6%, starting in fiscal year 2028. The penalties are tiered: states between 6% and 8% pay 5% of benefit costs; 8% to 10% pay 10%; above 10%, 15%.

Based on current rates, the vast majority of states would face cost-sharing. Analysis from the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project (7) found only three states have maintained rates below 6% consistently since 2017. Projections from the Alliance for Opportunity (8) estimate Florida could face penalties exceeding $1 billion and California's exposure could reach $1.8 billion.

Critics warn the law also cuts federal administrative funding states need to hire caseworkers, upgrade systems, and actually reduce errors — creating a risk that states hit the target by making applications harder rather than fixing internal accuracy.

Two collection systems, one fixed income

King was also caught between two government collection tracks that have both gotten more aggressive.

On the SNAP side, the Treasury Offset Program garnishes Social Security to recover food stamp debt. On the Social Security side, the SSA itself ratcheted up its own overpayment recovery in 2025 — announcing a 100% clawback rate in March before pulling back to 50% after public backlash, according to SSA press releases and current policy guidance (9). The Biden administration had capped it at 10% just a year earlier, after reports that full withholding pushed some seniors into homelessness.

About 40% of Social Security beneficiaries depend on the program for 90% or more of their income. For someone like King — a senior on a fixed check, facing a SNAP debt she didn't create — there's not much left over after the government takes its cut.

What recipients should know

SNAP recipients should monitor their benefits monthly and flag anything unusual immediately. A sudden increase could signal an error that will eventually become a bill. Recipients who receive overpayment notices have the right to dispute the claim, request a hearing, or negotiate a repayment plan. In some states, small agency-error overpayments aren't pursued — Massachusetts, for example, waives recovery on agency errors under $600, according to Massachusetts Legal Services (10).