Surface potential issues tied to client updates

Estimated impact versus effort

High impact to PER

Admin effort	Tech effort	Worker burden	Client burden
Medium effort	No effort	Low burden	No burden

Challenges

USDR learned that accounting for client-reported changes — like changes in income or household units — were not prioritized or easy for workers to process. For example, change reports would appear identical as new applications in the eligibility system and were often perceived by workers as duplicate applications.

In one state, 29% of agency-caused 2025 error dollars came from reported changes or periodic reports relating to income, household changes, and shelter changes. If the state could process these reports more timely and accurately, this alone could reduce PER by more than 1 percentage point.

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Plays

Tackle backlogs with dedicated staff and make changes easier for both clients and frontline workers.

States should consider processing change reports as a top priority. Our team looked at QC data and realized if change reports could be processed with more timeliness and accuracy — this alone could reduce PER by over 1 percentage point and take states a third of the way towards their goal of being under 6%. States should consider assigning or hiring staff specifically to work change reports and periodic reports.

Guide clients to file change reports through the easiest channels for workers to process. Do this automatically, where possible.

States should analyze the ways a client reports changes (for example, through a client portal, mail, or integrated system) affects SNAP worker burden. You can do this by measuring the average processing time for each channel and talking to workers to understand pain points. States can make usability improvements like tagging change reports to distinguish them from new applications or encouraging clients to submit changes through channels that are easier for workers to process.

Check for opportunities to automatically detect if a change report contains "no changes" and highlight this for caseworkers

This will lower burdens on SNAP workers’ time. Processing automatically will also speed up clearing up these tasks in the system.

Use plain language and communicate clearly with clients.

States should re-design notices to report changes in plain language in order to help clients know what they need to report, and what documentation to submit. Refer also to our section on how to Communicate with clients in plain language.

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Key results to track

• Number of QC-reported errors citing periodic or change reports

• Average number of pending periodic and change reports

• Time that periodic or change reports wait in a processing queue

• Average processing time for change reports

• Loading time of client webpages and online forms that clients fill out

What to watch out for

If you take workers away from processing new applications, states need to monitor how it affects overall SNAP timeliness.