The Trump administration announced today that it will partially fund the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) after two judges issued rulings last week requiring it to keep the nation’s largest food aid program operating.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture told a federal court that it will tap into a contingency fund to allow states to issue partial November SNAP benefits. This means that the 42 million households that receive benefits will get less than the full amount they are entitled.
In Missouri, 655,000 residents depend on SNAP benefits, including more than 47,000 households in St. Louis County, according to County Executive Sam Page.
Last week, two federal judges, John McConnell and Indira Talwani, rejected the Trump Administration’s argument that SNAP benefits would not be available this month because its contingency funds were not legally available to cover regular benefits. It also argued that contingency funds can’t be used to mitigate government shutdowns.
The administration’s arguments stood in opposition to the law and prior practices, including those set by the Trump Administration’s USDA “Lapse of Funding Plan,” which the agency had recently removed from its website. Trump’s first administration, as communicated repeatedly in multiple USDA documents, confirmed that contingency funds could be used for SNAP benefits during the 2018-19 shutdown.
USDA officials told a federal court today that it will tap into a contingency fund to allow states to issue partial November SNAP benefits. There is roughly $4.6 billion in the contingency fund that can be used to cover benefit payments, but those funds are insufficient to cover the full cost, which is over $9 billion for November.
That money will be used to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments, according to the USDA. Theoretically, once the shutdown ends and normal funding resumes, recipients who received partial benefits will be sent a retroactive payment to cover the full amount they were owed.