Maine could owe $50 million a year to maintain SNAP benefits under new federal mandate

Starting in 2028, Maine may have to contribute $50 million per year to maintain its federal food assistance due to the Trump administration’s changes that penalize states for making largely unintentional errors while administering food benefits.

A provision in President Donald Trump’s 2025 budget law requires states to pay for portions of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which had exclusively been funded by the federal government since it began many decades ago. How much each state has to pay will depend on its payment error rate — a measure of how often households receive too much or too little in benefits.

Maine’s payment error rate of more than 10% in 2025 means the state would be responsible for 15% of SNAP benefit costs beginning in 2028. 

Anti-hunger advocates have warned that if the state is unable to come up with its share, it might drastically reduce the state’s SNAP benefits.

“It’s shocking, and it’s wildly unfair,” said Anna Korsen, deputy director of Full Plates Full Potential. “If the state can’t find a way to pay for these benefits, that will mean that eligible people will go hungry. People who really, really need SNAP could potentially no longer receive it and not have a way to buy their groceries.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released new payment error rate data this week showing a slight nationwide decline compared with 2024. 

The federal government framed the errors as evidence of weak oversight in the SNAP program, with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying in a statement that they “are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP.”

But Maine experts say error rates are mostly due to human error administering a complicated program, and are not an indication of fraud, waste and abuse. 

“I don’t think that the federal government’s intent here is to lower the payment error rate or to make it so that more people can easily access SNAP,” Korsen said. “I think they’re trying to do the opposite, based on all that we’ve seen them attempt to do.”

The Trump administration has made several other changes to food assistance, reducing eligibility for certain groups of recipients, such as legal immigrants and people with disabilities. In addition to being responsible for cost-sharing, the amount that states have to contribute to administrative costs also increased from 25% to 50%.

As a result of these cuts, participation in the program fell by an estimated 10% nationwide over the past year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. Many Mainers also saw a reduction in their monthly benefits, further straining household budgets as grocery prices remain high. 

The impact on states

Maine has generally lowered its error rates over the past 10 years, after they reached a high of more than 19% in 2019 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Lowering those rates further will require more staffing and technology, which has been a challenge for the state, Korsen said. Through this year’s supplemental budget, the state made investments to address those challenges, including millions of dollars to upgrade technology and hire and train new staff. However, Korsen said the federal government’s timeline did not give states enough time to make changes to adequately address the issues behind the errors.

Under the new guidelines, states can choose to use error rates from either 2025 or 2026 to calculate how much they’ll need to contribute. States with error rates between 6% and 8% must cover 5% of their recipients’ costs. States with error rates between 10% and 13.34% will be responsible for 15% of program costs. A handful of states whose error rates top the 13.34% threshold will be given an extra year to improve administration before the cost-sharing requirement takes effect.

Congress is currently weighing competing drafts of the farm bill, one that includes a delay in the implementation of this cost shift. If that delay is not included in the final bill, the incoming governor and Maine Legislature will have to find the money to pay for the program.

“If we can’t find a way to stop this cost shift from happening, or if the state can’t find a way to pay for it … the impact will be absolutely devastating,” Korsen said, noting it may require changes to the state tax code.

“It could lead to grocery stores closing in communities because of how many shoppers use their SNAP benefits to shop at that grocery store,” she added.