More than 35,000 U.S. retailers trafficked more than $1 billion in food stamp benefits a year over a period of three years, a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found.
The USDA report estimated that 35,891 food retailers in the U.S. illegally trafficked the billions worth of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits between the years of 2012 and 2014.
“Retailer trafficking of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits occurs primarily when SNAP recipients sell their benefits for cash to food retailers, often at a discount,” the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service said in a summary of the report.
The agency added that SNAP benefits are only allowed to be used on food items at authorized retailers and that the use or sale of benefits for any other purpose is illegal.
The 2017 report — which looked at food stamp fraud in the years 2012, 2013, and 2014 — estimated that 11.8 percent of the 303,522 authorized SNAP retailers during that time period illegally trafficked food stamps. – READ MORE
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