diff --git a/pkg/kubelet/status/state/checkpoint.go b/pkg/kubelet/status/state/checkpoint.go
index 940a70d3e7f..2205953cc8d 100644
--- a/pkg/kubelet/status/state/checkpoint.go
+++ b/pkg/kubelet/status/state/checkpoint.go
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ func NewCheckpoint(allocations *PodResourceAllocationInfo) (*Checkpoint, error)
 
 	serializedAllocations, err := json.Marshal(allocations)
 	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to serialize allocations for checkpointing: %w", err)
 	}
 
 	cp := &Checkpoint{