Trump Administration Won’t Use Emergency Funds For SNAP During Shutdown
“About 42 million low-income Americans are set to lose access to monthly nutrition assistance in November, after the Trump administration said on Friday that it would not reconfigure the budget to provide benefits during the government shutdown.
The decision, described in an Agriculture Department memo, appeared to contradict earlier guidance from the agency that said it could tap into leftover emergency funds. The move raised the risk of some of the nation’s poorest families’ being unable to buy food in a matter of days.
Dozens of states have warned that they cannot provide benefits next month, and at least two have already paused delivering them, prompting a surge of demand at food banks and eliciting anxiety among recipients.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides one in eight people in the United States with money to buy food. Those benefits, often referred to as food stamps, average about $187 per month and cost the federal government $8 billion monthly. The shutdown has put funding for the program at risk. But SNAP maintains a reserve, currently estimated to be about $5 billion, that can help cover emergencies and shortfalls.”
Read more at New York Times.