SNAP is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net, used by nearly 1 in 8 people in the country each month.
WASHINGTON — Millions of Americans are at risk of losing critical food assistance from the federal government next month, as the government shutdown reaches the three-week mark.
Roughly 42 million people in the U.S. use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps.
SNAP is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net, touching nearly 1 in 8 people in the country each month. They receive benefits on prepaid cards that they can use for groceries.
The other big pieces of the safety net — Social Security and Medicaid — are expected to continue paying benefits during the shutdown.
But because of the way it’s funded, SNAP is vulnerable.
When will SNAP lose funding?
In the accounting year that ended on Sept. 30, 2024, SNAP cost just over $100 billion, including the half of state administrative costs covered by federal taxpayers. It provided an average of $187 a month to 41.7 million people.
SNAP benefits are continuing through October, but officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, sent letters on Oct. 10 to the state agencies that administer it telling them not to send certain files to the contractors that would clear the way for the EBT cards to be loaded at the start of November.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters last week that money for the program would run out in approximately two weeks, right at the end of October.
“So you’re talking about millions and millions of vulnerable families, of hungry families that are not going to have access to these programs because of this shutdown,” she said, in comments reported by CNN.
Like other members of the Trump administration, Rollins cast blame on Democrats, who are preventing a funding bill from passing until Republicans agree to continue subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
Congress remains at an impasse, a funding bill failing for the eleventh time Monday night in the Senate.
Multiple states, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Minnesota and Illinois have issued warnings that the shutdown could halt SNAP benefits.
However, even if the shutdown continues it’s possible state or federal governments could free up money to bridge the gap to restore SNAP funding.
What about Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid?
Those three programs are “mandatory” spending. That means the money goes out whether or not Congress passes a budget. Those welfare programs actually make up most of the government’s budget (along with debt). The rest is the “discretionary” budget, and that’s what Congress is still fighting over.
The Medicaid funding that Democrats want to restore was cut in President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” By some estimates, almost 8 million Americans could be at risk of losing their health insurance because of those cuts. Democrats want that money to come back.
What is a government shutdown?
A government shutdown means that all “non-essential” federal government work stops. The government itself gets some leeway to decide what is essential work and what isn’t. But even essential workers often won’t get paid until a shutdown ends. That means some workers, like air traffic controllers and TSA agents, will all be working without getting paid.
Members of congress, the president and many federal judges will continue to get paid.
And that “non-essential” clause can cover a lot of important programs. Past shutdowns have stopped or delayed:
In the past, those “non-essential” workers were furloughed, which is basically a temporary layoff. President Trump has warned he could just fire all of those workers and eliminate their jobs permanently. Meaning that, even if the government shutdown ended, they would have no jobs to come back to.
The shutdown only ends if Congress passes a new budget or a continuing resolution.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.