SNAP benefits are vulnerable to theft. From June of 2023 to the end of 2024, thieves stole $17 million dollars in SNAP benefits from Ohio families in more than 30,000 cases, according to data from the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. In the next several years, Ohio will have less money to distribute to the more than a million residents who receive SNAP benefits in the state. Her monthly SNAP benefits were supposed to have refilled that morning. Even if they weren’t already strained, Lane-Gavin says food pantries can’t provide the same kind of flexibility around nutrition that SNAP benefits can.