Senators demand USDA prevent theft of grocery funds from low-income families

The U.S. Agriculture Department must take immediate action to secure the benefits cards from which low-income families are being robbed of grocery funds, six Democratic senators urged in a letter.

Data since last fiscal year shows that the federal government has reinstated more than $150 million in stolen benefits to participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

But the actual amount taken from needy households is most likely much higher than that, the senators wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, adding that a proposed rule that the Agriculture Department has yet to release about modernizing the cards would prevent the thefts from proliferating.

“The USDA should act with urgency to require state-issued benefit cards to be protected by industry-standard payment security defenses,” read the letter, which was sent Monday evening and first shared with NBC News. It was signed by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., John Fetterman, D-Pa., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Peter Welch, D-Vt., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

SNAP is a far-reaching public benefits program that helps over 42 million people nationwide purchase fruit, vegetables and other groceries, according to the Agriculture Department, which oversees SNAP. The program, which used to be referred to as food stamps, provides participants with electronic benefits transfer cards that have magnetic stripes that are swiped at card-reading machines.

But unlike consumer credit and debit cards, SNAP EBT cards lack security features such as microchips or tap-to-pay technology. That makes them particularly vulnerable to “skimming” — a form of electronic theft that occurs when criminals hide devices in payment terminals and clone card information, including users’ PINs. (See a picture of skimming overlays here.) The thieves then copy the information onto fake cards, which they use to drain SNAP participants’ benefits.

“It’s unacceptable that hackers and scam artists are stealing food benefits that low-income families rely on to put food on the table,” Wyden said in a statement to NBC News. “Our government cannot keep stalling on requiring protections against thieves who are ripping away families’ benefits and leaving them without any money to pay for groceries.”

No state offers EBT cards with microchip protection yet, and only a small number have timetables for the transition to chip-embedded cards. California, set to start rolling them out in early 2025, is the furthest along, an Agriculture Department spokesperson said. Alabama and Oklahoma are scheduled to switch to chip cards next summer, though Alabama could implement them as soon as the spring, according to spokespeople for the agencies that administer SNAP in those states.

Advocates say it’s imperative that the Agriculture Department require more secure cards nationwide as soon as possible.

“The households being affected are victims of crime,” said Betsy Gwin, a senior economic justice attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, a nonprofit poverty law and policy center.

“It continues to be extremely heartbreaking to hear from families who are doing what they can to protect themselves yet continue to be at risk and end up in a grocery store checkout line with a cart full of groceries only to discover that their benefits for that month have been stolen and they don’t have the ability to provide food for their family,” she said.

The senators’ letter called on the Agriculture Department to “swiftly finalize” the proposed rule for EBT card security measures that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 required it to work on.

“While the innovation of the private sector and the leadership of certain states in this space is commendable, the urgency of this issue demands a concerted federal effort,” the senators wrote.

Vilsack last month encouraged all governors to adopt new EBT standards for cardholders in their states. In a statement to NBC News before it received the letter, the Agriculture Department said rulemaking regarding EBT card security measures is “ongoing and expected in calendar year 2025.”

“Our current regulations do not prohibit states from moving forward with implementing chip cards before this rulemaking takes place,” a spokesperson said in an email.

Reimbursements at risk

The senators’ letter comes at a crucial time: just days before the policy that has allowed states to use federal funds to reimburse SNAP participants for some stolen benefits is set to expire.

Only a handful of states reinstate skimmed SNAP dollars using state funds, and unless Congress acts soon, federal funds will no longer be authorized to reimburse those who become victims of EBT theft after Friday — meaning most who are robbed of their grocery funds would not get them back.

Those fighting food insecurity have appealed to Congress to extend federal SNAP replacement benefits in the end-of-year spending package.

“It is unconscionable that some in Congress would stand in the way of providing SNAP replacement benefits to those who have been victims of fraud,” Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy organization, said in a statement over the weekend.

The senators’ letter said stolen benefits will continue to be a problem unless the Agriculture Department removes the requirement that SNAP EBT cards have “outdated and insecure” magnetic stripes and instead require chip cards within the next couple of years.

“Replacing stolen benefits, while critical, is not a sustainable solution,” the letter said. “Rapidly issuing the proposed rule to modernize EBT technology will reduce fraud, enhance consumer protections, and ultimately save taxpayer dollars.”

Wyden introduced a bill in March that would direct the Agriculture Department to issue updated cybersecurity regulations for SNAP EBT cards for the first time since 2010 and phase out magnetic stripe cards within five years. The bill has yet to advance.

Fetterman, a co-sponsor on Wyden’s bill, said in a statement to NBC News on Monday that low-income families should not have to worry about losing their benefits “because the system hasn’t kept up with basic security standards.”

 “Congress directed USDA to modernize these cards to protect families exposed to unnecessary risks of fraud and theft,” he said. “We’re calling on the USDA to stop dragging their feet and modernize EBT cards with the same technology we’ve used for years on credit and debit cards.”