Kentucky wrongly revokes SNAP benefits based on shopping patterns
Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services has wrongly terminated SNAP food benefits for hundreds of people based on shopping pattern data analysis that judges and legal experts say proves little about actual fraud. A court found the practice overly harsh in the case of a single mother whose legitimate shopping behavior was misinterpreted by the system.
What happened
Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services has used transactional data analysis over five years to bring hundreds of fraud cases to revoke SNAP benefits, relying heavily on shopping patterns as evidence.
A single mother from Salyersville lost benefits in 2020 after investigators flagged multiple same-day purchases, attempted overdrafts, invalid PINs, and whole-dollar purchases as suspicious. She explained she worked at the store, bought lunch there and groceries after work, and her child sometimes used her card. An administrative hearing officer terminated her SNAP benefits based solely on the shopping pattern.
Reported impact
The woman sued and won in 2023, with Franklin County Judge Thomas Wingate ruling it 'draconian to take away SNAP benefits from a single mother without clear and convincing evidence that intentional trafficking was occurring during a time when food scarcity is so prevalent.'
Kentucky ranks second nationally for per-capita SNAP administrative disqualifications behind Florida. Disqualifications rose from fewer than 100 in 2015 to over 1,800 in 2023, with more than 300 people accused of selling or misusing benefits since January 2024.
Index analysis
Judges, lawyers and legal experts stated in interviews and court documents that transactional data shopping patterns prove little about actual fraud. Kentucky Public Radio reviewed dozens of administrative hearing decisions and court documents from the last five years in which the cabinet relied on shopping patterns to prove benefit trafficking.
Governance controls
Administrative hearing officers terminated benefits based solely on shopping pattern data without requiring clear evidence of intentional fraud, as occurred in the single mother's case until she pursued judicial review.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
This record was researched and written by the Index from original reporting. Its sources are still being verified by an editor, and they are listed here once that check is complete. Until then the record carries no reviewer.