Partial payments to nearly 42 million food stamp recipients will be issued in November under the Trump administration. This misguided decision is poised to have a profound impact on working families around the country. The partial funding will only cover a little over half of a family’s average monthly benefit. This has put a huge number of recipients food secure as the indefinite government shutdown continues.
The one-time emergency funding will bring those households up to 100 percent of what they’re eligible for, using $4.65 billion from a contingency reserve fund. The total of partial SNAP funding can differ greatly based on state and unique beneficiary attributes. Some grantees were originally scheduled to receive their funds by early November. Now these heroes are experiencing significant delays in receiving the benefits they deserve.
This change to implement partial benefits has raised a significant outcry. Families that depend on these subsidies would suffer immensely. After just two weeks of assistance from the emergency allotments, recipients will soon start to fall short on food again. This daunting prospect looms over them.
Experts say the changes these states need to make to actually roll out these items could bring further delays. Therefore, benefit distribution may be delayed even longer than anticipated. David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, pointed out that “fiscally, it’s a lot of money and I think the states would find it difficult to do.” Operationally, he zoomed in on a lot of operational steps that would have to be taken, which states could take more efficiently than others.
The partial funding approach stems from a loud and contentious debate. This argument is all about other funding streams that could have more than enough due to carry SNAP benefits into November. A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to utilize emergency funds to support SNAP payments amid the government shutdown. The administration has access to at least $30 billion in other funds, far in excess of child nutrition payments. Shockingly, they didn’t even bother to move the necessary funds to cover their promised benefits.
Super noted that “the Trump administration could transfer enough money over to SNAP to pay for full benefits in November without any conceivable risk to child nutrition.” That failure to act has left thousands of families in limbo and on edge. Roof, an advocate for food security, remarked, “It’s certainly a lot of anxiety because people won’t know when they might expect to get the rest of the money.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has reported that the contingency fund reserves are running about $6 billion. This is less than the $8 billion needed to keep SNAP whole for the month of November. As states start to work through these bite-sized payments, recipients will soon find themselves in a more desperate position.
We understand the administration’s move to only partially help as coming from the same political stalemate that has continued through the current government shutdown. While the emergency funding aims to assist those in need, it does not address the underlying issues that have led to these delays. The transition to partial benefits sometimes takes just a few weeks, but often stretches for months. This unexpected delay creates additional hardships for those who depend on SNAP.
There are major hurdles that states must overcome as they gear up to implement these influxes of emergency dollars. Roof highlighted that “the daunting part is that states have to go in and make this adjustment to their payment amounts.” These changes will only add to the burden placed on state agencies that are already straining under the weight of fewer resources and more demands.
