Taylour Grant is trying to keep her four kids from finding out there won’t be money for food in a few days.
The 29-year-old former medical assistant in Tampa, Florida, hasn’t been able to work since May because one of her children, who has autism, needed her full attention. So she doesn’t have a cushion to replace the money she’s gotten the first of every month through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.
“I try not to … show what’s happening on the forefront because of my kids, but I mean, ultimately, what? What can we do? It is out of our hands,” said Grant, whose oldest is 14 and youngest, just 1. “I haven’t been working, things are getting behind. I’m already facing eviction. I have other bills piled up.”
When SNAP benefits don’t arrive for Grant and 42 million other Americans on Nov. 1, it will be the first time that food safety net money has been delayed in the program’s 60-year history.
“The tap has never been turned off even during a shutdown because everybody up until now, every administration, Republican or Democrat, has understood that feeding Americans is a fundamental responsibility of the federal government,” Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner told USA TODAY.
But on Oct. 27, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it can’t use the $6 billion in its contingency fund account to pay for SNAP, although the agency has used it in at least two previous shutdowns, including the 2018 to 2019 shutdown during President Donald Trump‘s first term, which lasted 35 days.
Two states told USA TODAY they cannot afford to provide the funds to fill the gap, others are trying even though the federal government says states are not allowed to. Several governors have declared states of emergency so surplus and emergency funds can be used to help food banks or SNAP recipients directly.
Recipients and state officials are scrambling to figure out how to put food on the table with just a few days’ notice. Grant is worried that food banks and civic organizations will be overwhelmed and quickly run out of food.
“There are 42 million people that are going to be missing out. And that’s a number that is unheard of,” Grant said. She is “trying to figure out what churches are going to be giving out food and stuff like that, or what food banks are near, and just trying to look at every resource possible right now.”
‘Suspending a lifeline’
Around 12% of the more than 342 million people in the United States rely on the federal program, which provides low-income families with monthly benefits to afford healthy food.
According to the USDA’s fiscal year 2019 annual report of demographics of SNAP users, 36% of recipients were White, and 26% were Black. It also shows that 43% of participants were children, 32% were nondisabled, non-elderly adults, 16% of participants were age 60 or older, and 10% were non-elderly adults with disabilities.
“Suspending SNAP due to the shutdown is suspending a lifeline,” Steiner, the Oregon state treasurer, said.
In fiscal year 2025, the average monthly benefit per person in the SNAP program was $190.59, according to the USDA. For households, the average monthly benefit was $356.41 in total.
USDA’s announcement that benefits wouldn’t be paid came as a surprise as Congress ambles into the second month of a government shutdown with no public signs of negotiations between the two parties.
The USDA has historically used contingency funds to ensure benefits were not interrupted during previous shutdowns, but now claims it cannot legally issue the money.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1,” the agency stated in a message on its website.
The USDA’s shutdown contingency plan, which was issued in September to explain how the agency would function during a shutdown, said the agency has a reserve of contingency funds, which can be used to pay benefits directly. That plan has since been removed from the USDA’s website.
In a letter shared with USA TODAY, the USDA said the contingency money is available only “to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits.”
“The contingency fund is not available to support (fiscal year) 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists,” the letter said.
Congressional leaders of both parties immediately placed responsibility on the shoulders of the other party. The White House sent USA TODAY an unattributable statement accusing Democrats of being happy to use SNAP recipients as political pawns.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters that he’s received a summary of a legal analysis concluding that the SNAP contingency funds “are not legally available to cover the benefits right now.”
“I got a summary of the whole legal analysis and it certainly looks legitimate to me,” he said.
When asked for a copy of that legal analysis, USDA and the Speaker’s office referred USA TODAY to a memo with no supporting legal citations.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the government found ways to fund SNAP during all previous shutdowns, including the longest one. He called the argument that Trump can’t provide the benefits during the funding lapse “nasty, vicious, self-serving bull.”
“Republicans are on a crusade to kill SNAP,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Oct. 29.
Some states find a way forward
Attorneys general and governors from 25 Democrat-led states filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on Oct. 28 in an attempt to force the Trump administration to fund the nation’s largest food aid program.
The lawsuit argues that suspending SNAP benefits is avoidable, arbitrary and is being carried out in violation of the Food and Nutrition Act, which requires that “assistance under this program shall be furnished to all eligible households.”
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont and Virginia and other states have announced that they plan to supplement SNAP funding in some capacity or use state money to purchase food for food banks.
The program is fully federally funded, and the USDA has said states will not be refunded if they choose to help SNAP recipients.
Many states are pointing residents to food banks and asking others to donate what they can.
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Oct. 28 a plan to give state-funded benefits to Virginians who are already on SNAP once federal benefits lapse on Nov. 1.
The Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance will deposit weekly benefits starting on Nov. 3 to EBT cards for Virginians who received SNAP benefits for October, he said at a news conference.
Using funds from the state surplus, the Virginia program is expected to total roughly $37.5 million every week.
“We are prepared to run this program for the entire month of November,” Youngkin told reporters.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced Oct. 30 that she was declaring a state of emergency to issue $65 million for food assistance. The governors of Delaware, Louisiana and Rhode Island have also declared states of emergency to move money faster.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, deployed the state’s National Guard troops and a state office that organizes volunteer efforts to support food banks by helping to prepare food for distribution. Newsom is also “fast-tracking” about $80 million worth of state support to food banks, according to a news release.
But not all can fill the gap
Still, leaders of multiple states stressed that what they can do is not enough to fill the gap between what food banks can provide and the hundreds of millions of monthly SNAP meals.
Massachusetts State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said her state isn’t prepared to cover the $225 million for food residents would have received in November.
“We are facing a real moment of deep concern for millions and upon millions of American families. This irresponsible, aggressive attempt to shut down food assistance puts 42 million people at risk,” Goldberg said. “In this country, there should not be a food emergency, and certainly no one in government should be depriving people of an essential such as food.”
The governor and other elected officials are discussing pulling the money from Massachusetts’ emergency fund to help with SNAP, but have to balance that decision with the $2.7 billion in revenue it will lose because of the GOP tax and spending bill signed into law this summer, Goldberg said.
“SNAP is one of the emergencies we have and we have many right now caused by the actions of the federal government, including health care costs,” she said.
In Oregon, one month of missed federal payments is approximately $140 million and “we do not have the state resources to backfill these suspended federal payments,” said Steiner, the state treasurer.
Steiner said it is immoral to use hunger as a leveraging tool to reopen the government.
“State budgets cannot replace vital federally funded programs like SNAP, even as these cold-hearted decisions leave families hungry,” she said. “This decision on behalf of the federal government is an absolute abdication of its responsibility to families in Oregon and across the United States who are struggling to make ends meet.”
Oregon and Massachusetts are considered “blue” states, with Democrats serving in most of their elected leadership roles. But states that will be hardest hit by the SNAP funding loss include “red” states like Texas and Louisiana.
It’s not a lot of money, but it helps
Janice Waite, 52, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, still has three of her four sons living at home, one of whom is autistic, nonverbal and has seizures. She has to work around his schedule and has a hard time working a 9-5 job.
She recently reapplied for SNAP after previously using it for years and is waiting to hear the status of her application.
Her parents and sister have been helping out and she uses the food bank at her children’s school. With three teenage boys in the house, she was counting on the SNAP funds in November.
“It’s not a lot of money, but it’s still a huge help,” she said. “We’re all praying that they come up with some sort of a better plan because we can’t afford it.”
USA TODAY reporters Bart Jansen, Rebecca Morin and Melina Khan contributed to this article.
Sarah D. Wire is a senior national political correspondent and can be reached at swire@usatoday.com
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