Why is SNAP failing Hawaiʻi residents?

It shouldn’t be an obstacle course to apply for SNAP—a program that exists to help struggling families put food on the table. Every day, families, kūpuna, and people with disabilities rely on this essential federal program for their everyday meals. But Hawaiʻi’s program has been challenged by backlogs, long waits, and errors. Program staff are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and underpaid.

The state Department of Human Services (DHS) is making strides to fix the current backlog, but an outdated eligibility system and recent system outages have put them behind on SNAP applications. Persistent staffing issues mean workers are spread extremely thin. On any given day, only three-fourths of eligibility workers are actually in the office, which makes it difficult to perform the work that only “merit staff” (authorized state eligibility workers) can complete. 

Some of these issues are driven by an inherent tension between accuracy and efficiency. Last year, Hawaiʻi was issued an $11 million fine by the federal government as a consequence for an above-average payment error rate. This penalty fee has placed pressure on the state office to improve payment accuracy and lower their error rate to below the national average of 11.68 percent. Alongside this penalty comes an opportunity to reinvest half of the amount of the fine as an emergency appropriation, which would be used to develop the new eligibility system. 

In the past year, DHS has worked to lower their payment error rate to 8.23 percent—below the national average. However, this has come at a cost to efficiency, with eligibility workers having to do additional verification, and applicants having to go through lengthy interviews to ensure no mistakes are made.