Kentucky has kicked people off food benefits using data that doesn’t tell the full story
September 30, 2025
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has brought hundreds of fraud cases in the last five years that are heavily reliant on transactional data with the goal of revoking people’s federal food benefits. Judges, lawyers and legal experts said in interviews with Kentucky Public Radio and in court documents that such evidence proves little. Kentucky has the second-highest number of what are called administrative disqualifications per capita in the country behind Florida, according to 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The state rapidly escalated disqualifying people from benefits in the last decade.