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I Received Food Stamps When I Was a Millionaire—Legally! Here’s What Minnesota Can Learn From My Experience to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

Minnesota’s fraud problem is newsy, but it isn’t new.

For the greater part of a decade, I have been one of the many Minnesotans sounding the alarm about a glaring loophole in our state’s food stamp program.

Back in 2016, I was volunteering in Central Minnesota, helping the elderly navigate Medicare. During a training session for volunteers, we learned that Minnesota considers only income—not assets—when determining if applicants are eligible for food stamps.

I was disturbed to learn that Minnesota is one of the states that uses a loophole called Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE) to bypass federal asset limits when signing folks up for food stamps. You could have six houses, four cars, and a billion dollars in savings, and you’d still be eligible for the state’s food stamp program as long as you’re within the income limit for the program. It was sold as a way to reduce administrative costs, but in reality, it allows millions of applicants to receive welfare they otherwise wouldn’t qualify for.

At FGA, we don’t just talk about changing policy—we make it happen.

By partnering with FGA through a gift, you can create more policy change that returns America to a country where entrepreneurship thrives, personal responsibility is rewarded, and paychecks replace welfare checks.