After foodbanks and SNAP recipients spent weeks bracing for a suspension of federal food assistance, the benefits appeared to be partially salvaged on Monday. But the disruption is already wreaking havoc on the normally steadfast program.
The Trump administration on Monday agreed to partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, after two court cases challenged the lapse in benefits. The administration said in a court filing that it will use $4.65 billion in contingency funds to cover about half of eligible households’ benefits this month. Beyond that, however, benefits are expected to run dry.
It’s the first time SNAP recipients will go without some of their benefits during a government shutdown. Funding for the program was supposed to renew on Saturday, so many people have already gone days without the money they were expecting. It’s still unclear exactly how soon electronic benefits cards will be reloaded — the process of getting money loaded onto the cards often takes states a week or more — and families don’t yet know the exact amounts they will receive.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a social media post Monday night that it "will take several weeks to execute partial payments." She added that when the government reopens, “FULL benefits can get to families without delay.”
For many, the SNAP suspension was one of the most feared outcomes of the shutdown: The prospect of losing grocery funds incited panic last week among many recipients, who lined up at food banks and began rationing what was left in their pantries. Politicians pointed fingers, with some state leaders scraping together emergency funds to fill the immense gaps. Misinformation swirled online, featuring racist tropes and fake videos.
Until Monday, the Department of Agriculture had said it could not legally use contingency funds to keep SNAP running during the shutdown, but a federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday ordered the Trump administration to release at least partial funding for SNAP.
For many recipients, partial benefits aren’t likely to last through the month — even with the full allotment, it’s common to run out before month’s end. Nearly 42 million Americans rely on SNAP assistance, and around 4 in 5 of these households include a child, an elderly person or someone with a disability.
Recipients across the country get their benefits at various points in the month, so not everyone has faced a shortfall yet. As the specter of hunger looms nationwide, at least nine governors have issued emergency declarations over the potential loss of benefits. California, Iowa, Nevada and West Virginia have readied their state’s National Guards to help distribute food. And roughly 30 states have freed up funds to support food banks or supplement the loss of SNAP benefits.
Democrats and Republicans have blamed each other for the SNAP chaos. The Trump administration has said Democrats could keep the funding from running dry by agreeing to a short-term measure that Republicans have already passed; that would keep SNAP, and the government, funded through Nov. 21. Democrats say Republicans need to take action on health care premiums that are going to skyrocket at the end of this year as part of any deal to end the shutdown.
Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in 25 states sued the USDA over what they said was a cruel and deliberate attempt to withhold benefits.
Democrats were also quick to criticize a sumptuous Halloween bash that President Donald Trump hosted at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, on the eve of SNAP benefits being suspended. The party took its inspiration from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby,” which was set in the roaring ‘20s and depicts the feckless rich living lavishly, seven years before the stock market crash plunged the country into the Great Depression.
Many Democrats viewed the event as tone-deaf, given that millions of Americans were on the brink of hunger. The president’s guests — which included top members of his administration, MAGA allies and big-time political donors — noshed on hors d’oeuvres and downed exotic cocktails while jazz music blared and burlesque dancers fluttered their fans. “A little party never killed nobody” was the theme, according to the White House.
When asked about the criticism of the party, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “These Democrats are full of it — President Trump has consistently called on them to do the right thing and reopen the government, which they could do at any time.”
Last week, SNAP recipients told NBC News they were bracing for the possibility that the EBT cards they use to purchase food would not be reloaded. A 60-year-old woman described waiting for hours in a line at a food pantry in Huntington, West Virginia. A preschool teacher in Wisconsin told her four children they might have to learn to live off beans and tortillas. A disabled father geared up to sell his television for food money.
“It’s very reminiscent to disaster preparing,” said Lucia Graves, a 35-year-old mother in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Graves said she was worried about affording her daughter’s day care if her SNAP benefits don’t renew on Wednesday.
Some companies, businesses and religious groups are pitching in to fill the gaps in assistance. DoorDash said it would deliver a million meals to food banks and pantries. A deli in Chicago is offering free meals — a sandwich, potato pancake, pickles and soft drink — to people who present their SNAP card. And a church in Manchester, Connecticut, hosted a pop-up food pantry using items donated by community members.
Amid the chaos, a debate has flared up over the value of the program itself. Some critics of federal food assistance stirred up ugly, misinformed tropes about SNAP recipients. Videos circulating on social media, which appear to have been AI-generated, showed Black women expressing outrage over the loss of SNAP benefits and claiming that taxpayers were responsible for feeding their children. A widely shared chart on X falsely suggested that most SNAP recipients were nonwhite and noncitizens.
In reality, more white people receive SNAP benefits than any other racial group. According to USDA data from 2023, white people made up around 35% of recipients, while African American people accounted for less than 26% and Hispanic people less than 16%.
“We have this mythical ‘welfare queen’ in our heads, and that those are the people on SNAP. But these are working people on SNAP, single mothers and children,” said Marcia Gamber, a 61-year-old SNAP recipient who spent her career selling life insurance until a string of injuries and illnesses left her unable to work.
In anticipation of a delay in her SNAP benefits, Gamber has been cooking soups with leftovers and freezing casseroles.
“I’m making struggle meals, as my mom used to call them,” she said.
