Steve Sanchez/AP
After dramatic losses in federal court last week, the Trump administration on Monday agreed to tap an emergency pot of money to partially fund SNAP, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. But the administration refused to use additional sources of funding that could provide full payments to SNAP beneficiaries in November. SNAP funding had lapsed on Saturday in the midst of the prolonged government shutdown, the first time in the program’s 61-year history that scheduled payments were not issued.
Monday’s developments follow two federal court rulings on Friday ordering the government to use the emergency funding to keep partial SNAP benefits flowing to the nearly 42 million Americans who depend on the program. The dual decisions amounted to a scathing rebuke of the Trump administration’s vehement insistence that it could not legally fund SNAP amid a government shutdown, an argument that US District Judge John McConnell said had unlawfully and “needlessly plunged SNAP into crisis.”
“There is no question that the congressionally approved contingency funds must be used now because of the shutdown,” McConnell said in his ruling. “In fact, the President, during his first term, issued guidance indicating that these contingency funds are available if SNAP funds lapse due to a government shutdown.”
Despite Monday’s announcement, significant challenges for SNAP beneficiaries—many of whom are senior citizens, Americans with disabilities, households with incomes below the poverty line, and, more recently, federal workers who have been furloughed or laid off—remain, as the shutdown appears on track to beat 2018’s record for the longest in US history. That’s largely because SNAP’s contingency funding is roughly $2 billion short of what is needed to fully cover November’s payments, and officials warn that these partial payments will likely take weeks to distribute.
Monday’s move is also unlikely to put an end to efforts by administration officials, Republican leaders, and right-wing media to use the high-stakes fight over SNAP funding to attack beneficiaries. They have characterized SNAP users as lazy and out to take advantage of federal assistance, even though nearly 40 percent of recipients are children, and millions work full-time jobs. Still, that hasn’t stopped high-ranking Trump officials from peddling harmful stereotypes, including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who on Friday called SNAP an “extremely corrupt program.”
