Nebraska is one of nine states that met a newly imposed federal target for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program error rates, shielding the state from an immediate reduction in federal reimbursement under a law passed last year.
What the threshold means
Under the 2025 law, states must report an error rate below 6 percent to avoid having to pay a portion of SNAP benefits from state funds beginning in October 2027. The error rate measures the share of SNAP benefits paid either above or below what recipients should have received, with overpayments accounting for most mistakes.
- National average: about 11 percent for fiscal 2025.
- States at or under 6 percent (fiscal 2025): Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
- Highest error rate: Alaska at 23 percent for fiscal 2025 (improved from about 60 percent in 2023).
The law gives states the option of using either their 2025 or 2026 error-rate figures when determining the percentage of SNAP benefits they must cover with state funds starting Oct. 1, 2027. That effectively allows most states one more year to reduce error rates by improving procedures, documentation or systems.
Why rates matter to Nebraska and other states
Error rates affect federal-state cost sharing for SNAP. If a state’s error rate exceeds the threshold it can be required to pay a larger share of benefits itself, shifting costs to the state budget. With the national average well above the 6 percent target, many states face the prospect of higher state spending unless they lower administrative and procedural errors.
Federal officials and state agencies typically break error rates into overpayments and underpayments; overpayments pose the larger fiscal risk because they represent funds not recoverable or improperly paid out. Nebraska’s inclusion among the nine states at or below 6 percent for fiscal 2025 means the state avoids the automatic funding penalty for now.
How states with high error rates are being handled
Some states with very high error rates have been given extra time to correct course. The Department of Health and Human Services has indicated through public comments that unusually high-error states may receive additional flexibility so long as they demonstrate efforts to maintain access to benefits while addressing documentation and administrative problems.
“While this approach helped protect access to food assistance, it increased the risk of procedural and administrative errors,” said Megan Darrow, a Department of Health spokesperson for Alaska, in recent public comments to a local news outlet.
States that do not meet the target and do not show improvement could face an obligation to fund a larger share of SNAP benefit payments or other corrective actions beginning in fiscal year 2028, according to the law’s timetable.
For Nebraska, officials will continue reporting error-rate data to federal authorities and may choose whether to use the 2025 or 2026 rate for the funding determination ahead of Oct. 1, 2027. The federal rules and the state’s reporting will determine whether any shift in federal reimbursement is triggered.
The fiscal 2025 snapshot that placed Nebraska among the nine compliant states provides temporary budget certainty for SNAP administration in Nebraska, but the choice of which year to use and any subsequent changes in error rates will dictate whether that certainty holds beyond 2027.
