From an Opinion piece by Megan Martin:
Nationally, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported $186 billion in improper payments in 2025 — a $24 billion increase from the previous year. And hard-working taxpayers fund all these improper payments.
To be clear, not all improper payments are necessarily fraudulent, but they do reveal a growing problem in the Keystone State. Between 2021 and 2025, Pennsylvania’s number of welfare fraud cases was nearly triple the national rate, according to analysis by the Foundation for Government Accountability. FGA described the commonwealth’s average fraud investigations as “one of the largest case volumes in the country.”
Pennsylvania is now one of the leading states in prosecuting welfare fraud. The commonwealth leads the country in fraud convictions and ranks third in charges filed against those defrauding Pennsylvania taxpayers and welfare recipients.
Even Gov. Josh Shapiro once admitted that Pennsylvania has a problem with fraud. Back when he was the attorney general, he estimated that Medicaid fraud cost Pennsylvanians $3 billion per year. (Ironically, Shapiro, now as governor, wants to add another $1.7 billion in the state budget for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, the agency responsible for managing welfare programs.)
And now, under a new federal law, Pennsylvania taxpayers may have to pay directly for the state’s failure to police its own programs. States with a payment error rate above 6% for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, must absorb a share of the costs.
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