Main Street Dollars

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Gasoline prices move every week across the country, but the size of last week’s move in Ohio stood out from the rest of the map. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest survey shows Ohio’s average price for a gallon of regular gasoline climbing 26 cents in just seven days, a jump sharp enough to outpace…

The food stamp market basket cannot be re-priced upward again before October 2027

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Every October, food stamp benefits move by a set formula tied to inflation. What most households never see is the separate, much bigger lever sitting behind that formula — the government’s own periodic re-costing of what a healthy diet actually requires — and a 2025 law has now welded that lever shut for two more…

A food stamp error under $57 does not count against a state at all

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Not every wrong food stamp payment shows up in the numbers the federal government uses to judge a state. Buried in a footnote of USDA’s own fiscal year 2025 accuracy report is a dollar line: if a case reviewer finds an error smaller than that amount, it is excluded from the state’s official payment error…

Alaska got 23.15 percent of its food stamp payments wrong, the worst rate in the country

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture closed the books on fiscal year 2025 food stamp accuracy on June 24, 2026, and one state stood far apart from the other 49. Alaska’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payment error rate came in at 23.15 percent — the highest of any state in the country, and more than double…

The smallest food stamp benefit rises to $25 in the lower 48 while Hawaii’s falls to $40

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Every October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture resets the floor under food stamp benefits, and the new numbers for the year ahead move in opposite directions depending on where a household lives. In the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia, the smallest possible monthly benefit for a one- or two-person household is going…

Heating help counts automatically toward food stamps only when someone in the house is old or disabled

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A change tucked into last year’s federal tax and spending law quietly rewrote one of the more obscure levers that decides a household’s monthly food stamp amount: the heating and cooling standard utility allowance. Until now, a small energy-assistance payment was often enough on its own to unlock a bigger shelter deduction and a higher…

Rural health money runs from $147 million in New Jersey to $281 million in Texas

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The federal government has started sending out $50 billion meant to keep rural hospitals, clinics and health workers running, and the first checks are anything but even. New Jersey’s share comes to $147 million and Texas’s comes to $281 million, even though both states are getting money from the exact same program on the exact…

A single VA claims processor decided 85,300 claims, averaging 4.7 minutes each

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A single senior veterans service representative at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Philadelphia Regional Benefit Office authorized about 85,300 disability rating decisions between fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2024, spending an average of 4.7 minutes on each one before signing off. A federal watchdog that reviewed the office’s work found the pace was not…

A Medicaid plan in Oregon broke the rules on one denial in five

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Health Share of Oregon, the Medicaid coordinated care organization covering the Portland metro area, violated federal or state rules in 21 of 100 prior-authorization denials a federal audit sampled — a one-in-five failure rate on the exact paperwork that decides whether a Medicaid enrollee’s surgery, medication or dental procedure gets covered. For a family relying…

Medicaid will cover only one month of bills from before an application, starting January 1

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