State and Local Government
Welfare Reform
THE PROBLEM
Missouri’s welfare programs too often foster government dependency while failing to ensure benefits go only to those who qualify.
THE SOLUTION
Capitalize on new federal reforms to encourage work and improve the integrity of Missouri’s welfare programs.
Continuing Growth
Medicaid is Missouri’s largest government-run program, with enrollment up roughly 50% since 2020. Approximately 660,000 Missourians are enrolled in SNAP. With so many Missourians relying on these programs, ensuring that benefits go only to those who qualify for them while encouraging able-bodied recipients to re-enter the workforce is key.
Make Work Requirements Work
Beginning in January 2027, the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law in 2025, requires able-bodied Medicaid expansion recipients without young dependents to complete 80 hours per month of community-engagement requirements. Missouri should carefully implement these requirements in order to encourage recipients who are capable of working to move toward self-sufficiency rather than simply creating another bureaucratic hurdle.
Doing so will require accurately tracking recipients’ income and employment while ensuring that exemptions are limited to those who qualify. Missouri should verify recipients’ eligibility, income, work activity, and exemptions so the requirements function as intended.
Focus on Eligibility
The state auditor has found ineligible Medicaid recipients who remained enrolled for years and benefits paid for deceased recipients because of insufficient system controls. Those problems take on greater urgency this year as the OBBB shifts more SNAP administration costs to states.
Missouri’s SNAP administrative share increased to 75% in October 2026, and another deadline is approaching. Beginning in October 2027, states with payment error rates of 6% or higher will be responsible for a share of SNAP benefit costs. Based on Missouri’s FY 2025 error rate of 8.67%, that could cost the state an estimated $150 million a year. Missouri should upgrade its information systems and reduce its error rate before incurring these costs.
Keep Reforming
The OBBBA gives states flexibility to reform their welfare programs, and Missouri should take advantage of this opportunity. Lawmakers should implement reforms to help recipients move toward self-sufficiency while also improving program integrity.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
- Implement work requirements using reliable income and employment data while ensuring that exemptions are appropriately limited to recipients who genuinely qualify.
- Continue upgrading state information systems to reduce Missouri’s SNAP payment error rate below 6%—avoiding an estimated $150 million a year in new benefit-cost liability—while minimizing waste, fraud, and abuse.
- Take advantage of new federal flexibility to continue reforming Missouri’s welfare programs.
