President Trump’s administration just announced that it will partially fund SNAP beneficiaries today, but the process may take a while for benefits to actually flow to the person.
Here’s the news via the Boston Globe:
President Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running.
It’s not clear how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly beneficiaries will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. The process of loading the cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.
I bet the slowest states will be the bluest states.
UPDATE: Here’s more from CBS News:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture told a federal court that it will tap into a contingency fund to allow states to issue partial benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the government shutdown.
In a declaration submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, Patrick Penn, a Department of Agriculture official who oversees SNAP, said the administration “intends to deplete SNAP contingency funds completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
There are roughly $5.2 billion in food-aid contingency funds, according to Penn. Officials have said fully covering November benefits would require roughly $9 billion.
More than 42 million Americans rely on SNAP to buy food, and the program ran out of funding over the weekend due to the ongoing shutdown. The federal government funds SNAP by sending money to the states, which oversee food stamp programs for their residents.
Justice Department lawyers separately told the court that the administration will “fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds” by providing states with information on Monday that they can use to calculate benefits due to each eligible household.