Jodi Hendricks, New Mexico Family Action Movement
November 25th, 2025
New Mexico has always prided itself on taking care of its own. When a family hits hard times, when a parent loses a job, or when groceries outpace the paycheck, we have a safety net to help. But safety nets only work when they’re strong. And right now, one of the biggest programs meant to help struggling families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is showing signs of strain.
Today, New Mexico has one of the highest SNAP payment error rates in the country. Nearly fifteen cents of every benefit dollar is mis-paid; the wrong amount, to the wrong person, at the wrong time. Nationally, the average is around ten cents. Some states keep their error rates under six percent while ours is almost three times that. This is negligence, and the people it hurts most are the very families who actually need help.
When SNAP is mismanaged, struggling households pay the price twice. First, through delays, wrongful closures, and chaotic benefit adjustments caused by administrative mistakes. And second, because waste and abuse drain resources away from families who truly qualify. This is why accuracy is essential for low-income families.
Fraud also thrives in the cracks of a broken system. Earlier this year in Sierra County, investigators uncovered a man trading his family’s SNAP benefits for fentanyl, the same fentanyl that contributed to the overdose death of a young father. Text messages offered hundreds of dollars in food benefits in exchange for pills. Surveillance footage confirmed the transactions. This was a tragic example of how benefit abuse feeds real harm in our communities.
Cases like this are rare, but they highlight the truth: when our systems fail, exploitation grows.
The problem isn’t that New Mexicans are greedy. The problem is that our program is not well managed. State quality-control reports show the deepest issues aren’t actually high-tech fraud rings but old-fashioned mismanagement: missed wage verifications, incomplete follow-up on inconsistent information, and a denial and closure process so error-prone that more than half the cases reviewed were found invalid.
This matters now more than ever. New Mexico has the highest SNAP participation rate in the country, more than 1 in 5 residents currently use the program. If we care about the families who actually need the assistance, then we must care that the system actually works. And if we care about taxpayers, we must care that benefits are going where they belong, not lost to avoidable errors or traded illegally for drugs.
The Legislature has ordered an audit of SNAP, and that is a necessary first step. But the audit needs to go beyond simply describing the problem, it needs to name it, measure it, and set a path toward reforms. We need clear data separating error from fraud. We need stronger verification, better notice procedures, and coordination with law enforcement so trafficking and abuse don’t go unpunished. And above all, we need transparency – because you can’t fix what you aren’t allowed to see.
New Mexicans are generous people. We believe in helping families get back on their feet. But generosity requires wisdom. If we want a safety net that is strong, trustworthy, and worthy of our values, then every dollar must go where it’s intended, to the mothers, fathers, and children who genuinely need it. Anything less is a failure of stewardship. And we can do better than that.
