Minnesota State Politics

A Minnesota House Public Safety Committee hearing this week will take up a GOP-backed bill to tighten Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility after a retired engineer with more than $1 million in assets says he legally qualified for food stamps because the state checks only income, not wealth. Rob Undersander, who applied in 2016, received thousands of dollars in benefits despite owning significant savings and property and says he used the money to highlight what he calls 'fraud by design' in Minnesota’s rules. The proposal from Republican state Rep. Pam Altendorf would require stricter income and asset verification before Minnesotans can enroll in SNAP, a program that has seen state benefits jump from roughly $725 million in 2020 to nearly $2 billion in 2021 and that cost the federal government nearly $100 billion last year. Conservative policy advocates testifying at the hearing argue that allowing millionaires and lottery winners to qualify undermines public trust in welfare programs and misdirects taxpayer funds away from the truly needy, while the debate plays out against a broader state fraud scandal involving other benefit programs that officials say may reach into the tens of billions of dollars.