In Saginaw, Michigan, a 32-year-old woman now faces felony charges for allegedly using her Bridge Card (the state’s SNAP benefit card) to purchase ingredients and then selling baked goods for income.
On its face, IF they can prove it, it could potentially be fraud under Michigan law.
But what does it really say about how state officials punish poverty, and when “helping yourself” becomes a crime worth prosecuting?
What’s the Real Story Behind SNAP Fraud in Michigan?
Allegedly Michigan’s SNAP fraud has surged nearly 400% from 2023 to 2024, resulting in at least $14 million lost in benefits last year alone. In 2024, welfare fraud incidents—including food stamp fraud—numbered about 733, up from 351 in 2023 . Yet, in spite of this unprecedented spike, enforcements haven’t kept pace.
Between 2020 and 2024, 432 people were considered for prosecution for alleged food stamp fraud.
Of those, only 91 cases were referred to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution: 34 in 2023 and 27 in 2024.
Which means a very small number of fraud cases actually occur and make it to the conviction finish line.
But in a lot of ways, Michigan, perhaps by design, brings the actual fraud cases on itself with antiquated technology.
The outdated magnetic strip Bridge Cards are said to be far easier to clone or skim, thus exacerbating the problem. Even the USDA urged the state to upgrade to chip-enabled cards, yet Michigan remains behind other states like California, Oklahoma, and Maryland.
Penalizing Versus Supporting
Bridge Cards are meant to help feed families, not serve as financial lifelines or business capital. But when a low-income individual attempts to bake and sell goods using SNAP-purchased ingredients, the system labels it fraud, even if the intent is self-sufficiency.
If the state was smart, and wanted to actually do something about poverty and helping people succeed, they would have asked this woman to develop a class to help people start low-barrier-to-entry businesses. But they didn’t. Because this isn’t about success.
This is about them having enough people to put through the legal wringer.
Moreover, we see disproportionate focus on low-level recipients while systemic vulnerabilities and organized crime exploiting SNAP go under-addressed. Most fraud is actually perpetrated by outsiders using skimmers; over 97% of EBT cloning fraud comes from out-of-state theft.
Why It Hits Hard
This case only made headlines because it’s sensational, and if there’s one thing the AG and OIG love, it’s headlines; thus, they had to punch down at a low-income person prosecuted for baking.
But with legitimate problems being ignored in Michigan, like legitimate stalkers who have made a career out of tormenting people, or Michigan DOC Officers who set off explosives and cause old women to become deaf and suffer from PTSD, it begs the question: why isn’t the AG or OIG doing their jobs and focusing on things that actually matter?
But the truth is the Michigan AG and OIG aren’t great at their jobs, because most SNAP fraud goes unseen: either ignored or undetected.
A Call for Policy Reflection: Intelligence Over Injustice
The AG and OIG need to do something about the real fraud cases instead of going for pageantry. They know there’s a problem and would rather keep the loopholes that allow them to obtain convictions.
Modernize the Tools Michigan needs to upgrade to chip-enabled Bridge Cards to curb skimming and clonation. $14 million lost in fraud far outweighs the $8–16 million one-time investment of modernization
Fine-Tune Enforcement Focus Focus prosecutorial resources on large-scale schemes and organized fraud, not on individuals struggling to get by.
Provide Pathways, Not Prosecutions Programs that support entrepreneurship among SNAP recipients, like small-business loans, training, or food entrepreneurship incubators, can shift from criminalizing poverty to empowering participants.
Prioritize Transparency and Integrity Inside the System Whistleblowers, like Ashanta Butler, who exposed internal SNAP fraud faced retaliation for raising serious questions about accountability and safety within agencies.
That’s messed up.
Wrapping It Up: The Rich Love to Punish the Poor
This isn’t just about the cost of ingredients or one person’s case.
It’s a stark portrait of a system that penalizes necessity while failing to address systemic costs, vulnerabilities, and inequities.
Unless the conversation shifts from punishing poverty to protecting and empowering those it was designed to support, we’ll keep seeing headlines that spotlight individual survival as crime, rather than spotlighting Michigan’s horrific policy failures.
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