I found a new category where California is once again a winner! In its fashion.
The federal “food stamp” program (now called SNAP) is federally funded but administered by the states. And boy, does California administer!
Looking at the fiscal year 2013 figures, the national average administrative cost per case per month was $25.21. California “led” the nation with a monthly cost of $67.84. California’s admin cost was 23.6% higher than the second highest state (Wyoming). It was 169% higher than the 50 state average (including, of course, California’s bloated cost in the average).
https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/2013-state-activity.pdf
Table 11
How about compared to hated Texas? California’s cost was a whopping 235% higher — more than TRIPLE the Texas cost.
“You get what you pay for”? I think not. Part of the admin cost is to fight fraud. But CA was able to successfully disallow bad claims only 54.6% of the time a hearing was held, vs. the national average of a 71.7% success rate.
Table 12
NOTE: This administrative cost UNDERSTATES the true cost, due to the usual skullduggery when it comes to public employee pensions and retirees’ health care unfunded liabilities. But to be fair, almost all states employ this subterfuge, so the only good news is that ALL the states lowball the true cost. I’m not sure why that’s “good news,” come to think of it.