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Tag: Government programs

  • Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge winners

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    The winners of this year’s Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge created innovative projects to improve their cities’ core services – many using some combination of artificial intelligence and the wisdom of their residents.

    That’s what South Bend, Indiana, Mayor James Mueller did with his initiative that uses AI to interpret data about residents, like a family falling behind on paying its water bill, and to help offer them services and support that could prevent larger issues.

    “Technology is not necessarily good or bad – it’s how it’s used and how you protect against abuses,” said Mueller, a Democrat who has been mayor since 2020. “We’re trying to use cutting edge tools to deliver city services in a proactive way that meets our residents’ needs.”

    The twenty-four winners announced Tuesday range from Boise, Idaho, where they are using geothermal energy to lower residents’ heating bills, to Beira, Mozambique, where they are relocating fishermen and their families from flood-prone coastal homes to safer inland houses. Each will receive $1 million to implement the program, as well as support from Bloomberg Philanthropies experts to help the new initiative succeed.

    The hope, says former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg L.P., is that successful programs from Mayors Challenge winners can be used in other cities.

    “The most effective city halls are bold, creative, and proactive in solving problems and meeting residents’ needs – and we launched the Mayors Challenge to help more of them succeed,” Bloomberg said in a statement.

    James Anderson, head of government innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said many of this year’s winners are integrating AI technology into their work in sophisticated ways, bringing municipal governments closer to the residents they serve.

    “Testing and learning and adapting new ideas don’t generally get funded with public dollars,” Anderson said. “It is up to philanthropy to support experimentation.”

    Vico Sotto, mayor of Pasig City in the Philippines, said becoming one of this year’s Mayors Challenge winners will speed up his project to build floating parks in the Pasig River that will become new community space and reduce flooding threats in the area. Without the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Sotto said the initiative wouldn’t be able to start for another year or two.

    “The government doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to maintaining infrastructure,” Sotto said. “So we will be creating a governance council, including people who live in the area, so definitely they’re not going to abandon these parks. They’re going to take care of them because they’re using them as well.”

    In Lafayette, Louisiana, the city-parish had the opposite problem. Lafayette wanted to update parts of its sewer system, but because some parts were on homeowners’ property the city wasn’t allowed to pay for it.

    Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet said the Mayors Challenge encouraged her administration to figure out a solution that will now allow Lafayette to make the repairs and, as a result, encourage development in the city. The plan was also named a Mayors Challenge winner.

    “Bloomberg Philanthropies, the staff, Michael Bloomberg – all of them – have such a global impact in ways that most people will never know,” said Boulet, a Republican elected in 2023. “They bring in a level of capacity and give you the space to really be creative and to come up with solutions that can change lives.”

    South Bend’s Mueller said that the Mayors Challenge comes at a time when more and more global problems need to be solved at a local level.

    “Trust in government is at an all-time low, but local governments consistently perform better in surveys about trust from their residents,” Mueller said. “It is critical for us to maintain that level of trust with our residents and build it even further. So that’s why we’re always looking at innovative ways of doing things better and making the city a better place to live.”

    The winners of the 2026 Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge are: As-Salt, Jordan; Barcelona, Spain; Beira, Mozambique; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Benin City, Nigeria; Boise, Idaho, United States; Budapest, Hungary; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Fez, Morocco; Fukuoka, Japan; Ghaziabad, India; Ghent, Belgium; Kanifing, The Gambia; Lafayette, Louisiana, United States; Medellín, Colombia; Netanya, Israel; Pasig, Philippines; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; South Bend, Indiana, United States; Surabaya, Indonesia; Toronto, Canada; Turku, Finland; Visakhapatnam, India.

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    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Health subsidies expire, launching millions of Americans into 2026 with steep insurance hikes

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expired overnight, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year.

    Democrats forced a 43-day government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their 2026 political aspirations. President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash.

    In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A House vote expected in January could offer another chance, but success is far from guaranteed.

    The change affects a diverse cross-section of Americans who don’t get their health insurance from an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare — a group that includes many self-employed workers, small business owners, farmers and ranchers.

    It comes at the start of a high-stakes midterm election year, with affordability — including the cost of health care — topping the list of voters’ concerns.

    “It really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full suffocation, and they continue to just pile on and leave it up to us,” said 37-year-old single mom Katelin Provost, whose health care costs are set to jump. “I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”

    The expired subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a temporary measure to help Americans get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats in power at the time extended them, moving the expiration date to the start of 2026.

    With the expanded subsidies, some lower-income enrollees received health care with no premiums, and high earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners was also expanded.

    On average, the more than 20 million subsidized enrollees in the Affordable Care Act program are seeing their premium costs rise by 114% in 2026, according to an analysis by the health care research nonprofit KFF.

    Those surging prices come alongside an overall increase in health costs in the U.S., which are further driving up out-of-pocket costs in many plans.

    Some enrollees, like Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan Clawson, have absorbed the extra expense. Clawson said he was paying just under $350 a month for his premiums last year, a number that will jump to nearly $500 a month this year. It’s a strain for the 49-year-old but one he’s willing to take on because he needs health insurance as someone who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury.

    Others, like Provost, are dealing with steeper hikes. The social worker’s monthly premium payment is increasing from $85 a month to nearly $750.

    Health analysts have predicted the expiration of the subsidies will drive many of the 24 million total Affordable Care Act enrollees — especially younger and healthier Americans — to forgo health insurance coverage altogether.

    Over time, that could make the program more expensive for the older, sicker population that remains.

    An analysis conducted last September by the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund projected the higher premiums from expiring subsidies would prompt some 4.8 million Americans to drop coverage in 2026.

    But with the window to select and change plans still ongoing until Jan. 15 in most states, the final effect on enrollment is yet to be determined.

    Provost, the single mother, said she is holding out hope that Congress finds a way to revive the subsidies early in the year — but if not, she’ll drop herself off the insurance and keep it only for her four-year-old daughter. She can’t afford to pay for both of their coverage at the current price.

    Last year, after Republicans cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, Democrats repeatedly called for the subsidies to be extended. But while some Republicans in power acknowledged the issue needed to be addressed, they refused to put it to a vote until late in the year.

    In December, the Senate rejected two partisan health care bills — a Democratic pitch to extend the subsidies for three more years and a Republican alternative that would instead provide Americans with health savings accounts.

    In the House, four centrist Republicans broke with GOP leadership and joined forces with Democrats to force a vote that could come as soon as January on a three-year extension of the tax credits. But with the Senate already having rejected such a plan, it’s unclear whether it could get enough momentum to pass.

    Meanwhile, Americans whose premiums are skyrocketing say lawmakers don’t understand what it’s really like to struggle to get by as health costs ratchet up with no relief.

    Many say they want the subsidies restored alongside broader reforms to make health care more affordable for all Americans.

    “Both Republicans and Democrats have been saying for years, oh, we need to fix it. Then do it,” said Chad Bruns, a 58-year-old Affordable Care Act enrollee in Wisconsin. “They need to get to the root cause, and no political party ever does that.”

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  • US applications for jobless benefits fell below 200,000 last week

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    WASHINGTON — Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week with layoffs remaining low despite a weakening labor market.

    U.S. applications for jobless claims for the week ending Dec. 27 fell by 16,000 to 199,000 from the previous week’s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast 208,000 new applications.

    Unemployment benefit filings are often distorted during holiday-shortened weeks. The shorter week can cause some who have lost jobs to delay filing claims.

    The weekly report was released a day early due to the New Year’s Day holiday.

    Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

    Earlier this month, the government reported that the U.S. gained a decent 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration. That helped to push the unemployment rate up to 4.6% last month, the highest since 2021.

    The October job losses were caused by a 162,000 drop in federal workers, many of whom resigned at the end of fiscal year 2025 on Sept. 30 under pressure from billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of U.S. government payrolls.

    Labor Department revisions also knocked 33,000 jobs off August and September payrolls.

    Recent government data has revealed a labor market in which hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in an outburst of pandemic-induced inflation. Since March, job creation has fallen to an average 35,000 a month, compared to 71,000 in the year ended in March.

    Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve trimmed its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point, its third straight cut.

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the committee reduced borrowing costs out of concern that the job market is even weaker than it appears. Powell said that recent job figures could be revised lower by as much as 60,000, which would mean employers have actually been shedding an average of about 25,000 jobs a month since the spring.

    Companies that have recently announced job cuts include UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon.

    The Labor Department’s report Wednesday also showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, rose by 1,750 to 218,7500.

    The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Dec. 20 fell by 47,000 to 1.87 million, the government said.

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  • California drops lawsuit seeking to reinstate federal funding for the state’s bullet train

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    OAKLAND, Calif. — California this week dropped a lawsuit officials filed against the Trump administration over the federal government’s withdrawing of $4 billion for the state’s long-delayed high-speed rail project.

    The U.S. Transportation Department slashed funds for the bullet train aimed at connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles in July. The Trump administration has said the California High-Speed Rail Authority had “ no viable plan ” to complete a large segment of the project in the farm-rich Central Valley.

    The authority quickly filed a lawsuit, with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the federal government’s decision “a political stunt to punish California.”

    The authority said this week that it would focus on other funding sources to complete the project, which is estimated to cost more than $100 billion.

    “This action reflects the State’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California,” an authority spokesperson said in a statement.

    The Transportation Department did not respond to a request for comment. President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have both previously criticized the project as a “train to nowhere.”

    “The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social in July. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”

    The authority’s decision to drop the lawsuit comes as the group seeks private investors to support the bullet train. The project recently secured $1 billion in annual funding from the state’s cap-and-trade program through 2045.

    The program sets a declining limit on total planet-warming emissions in the state from major polluters. Companies must reduce their emissions, buy allowances from the state or other businesses, or fund projects aimed at offsetting their emissions. Money the state receives from the sales funds climate-change mitigation, affordable housing and transportation projects, as well as utility bill credits for Californians.

    The rail authority said its shift in focus away from federal funding offers “a new opportunity.”

    “Moving forward without the Trump administration’s involvement allows the Authority to pursue proven global best practices used successfully by modern high-speed rail systems around the world,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

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  • Trump order halts offshore wind projects for at least 90 days

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    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has directed five large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast to suspend their activities for at least 90 days, according to letters from the Interior Department obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, which provide new details on the government’s move to pause the offshore ventures.

    During the pause, the Interior Department will coordinate with project developers “to determine whether the national security threats posed by this project can be adequately mitigated,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a letter to project developers. The 90-day period can be extended if necessary, the ocean management agency said.

    The administration announced Monday it was suspending the offshore wind projects because of national security concerns. Its announcement did not indicate whether the pause was limited, nor did it reveal specifics about the national security concerns.

    It was the latest step by the Trump administration to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The move angered local officials who have supported the projects and posed a new threat to offshore wind development that has faced increasing pressures since Trump took office.

    The letter to the developers said the Defense Department completed a recent assessment regarding the national security implications of offshore wind projects and provided senior leadership at Interior with new classified information, “including the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and the resulting direct impacts to national security from offshore wind projects.”

    The potential impacts are “heightened by the projects’ sensitive location on the East Coast and the potential to cause serious, immediate and irreparable harm to our great nation,” the letter said. The letter was signed by Matthew Giacona, the acting director of BOEM and a former lobbyist for the National Ocean Industries Association.

    Kirk Lippold, a national security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole, said concerns about wind turbines’ possible effects on radar systems “have been known for decades.”

    While Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said new classified information indicates turbines may pose a national security threat, “I want to know what’s changed?” Lippold said in an interview on Tuesday. “What threat vector has changed? Have the Chinese developed new weapons or techniques that we’re unaware of and can’t fight against?”

    “To my knowledge, nothing has changed in the threat environment that would drive us to stop any offshore wind programs,” he said.

    House Democrats, meanwhile, have called for an ethics investigation into Giacona’s actions since taking over at the agency that manages offshore waters. Giacona’s work may directly overlapped with his prior lobbying work for the ocean industries group, Democrats said.

    A spokesperson for Interior said Giacona “is a highly qualified and ethically sound employee who is working tirelessly on behalf of this administration to make real change for the American people.”

    Wind proponents slammed the administration’s move to suspend the projects, saying it was another blow in an ongoing attack by the Trump administration against clean energy.

    Democratic governors of four affected states — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York — issued a joint statement Tuesday vowing to fight the action, which they said “lands like a lump of dirty coal for the holiday season for American workers, consumers and investors.”

    Pausing active leases, including for projects that are nearly completed, “defies logic, will hurt our bid for energy independence, will drive up costs for America’s ratepayers and will make us lose thousands of good-paying jobs,” the governors said. “It also threatens grid reliability that is needed to keep the lights on.”

    The statement was issued by Govs. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Kathy Hochul of New York and Dan McKee of Rhode Island.

    Meanwhile, two Democratic senators said the lease suspensions mean that congressional efforts to approve bipartisan permitting reform are “dead in the water.”

    The House approved legislation last week aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects, seeking to meet growing demand for electricity. The bill would also limit judicial review as Congress seeks to enact the most significant change in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved.

    Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday that with House approval, “there was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide.”

    But they said any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration, whose “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” destroys the trust needed for true permitting reform.

    “There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law,” the senators said. Whitehouse is the top Democrat on the Senate environment panel, while Heinrich is the senior Democrat on the committee on energy and natural resources.

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    McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • US unemployment claims fall again last week, remain at historically healthy level

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    WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week and remain at historically healthy levels despite some signs that the labor market is weakening.

    U.S. applications for jobless claims for the week ending Dec. 20 fell by 10,000 to 214,000 from the previous week’s 224,000, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. That’s below the 232,000 new applications forecast of analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet.

    The weekly report was released a day early due to the Christmas holiday.

    Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

    Last week, the government reported that the U.S. gained a decent 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration.

    The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% last month, the highest since 2021.

    The October job losses were caused by a 162,000 drop in federal workers, many of whom resigned at the end of fiscal year 2025 on Sept. 30 under pressure from billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of U.S. government payrolls.

    Labor Department revisions also knocked 33,000 jobs off August and September payrolls.

    Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in an outburst of pandemic-induced inflation. Since March, job creation has fallen to an average 35,000 a month, compared to 71,000 in the year ended in March.

    Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve trimmed its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point, its third straight cut.

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the committee reduced borrowing costs out of concern that the job market is even weaker than it appears. Powell said that recent job figures could be revised lower by as much as 60,000, which would mean employers have actually been shedding an average of about 25,000 jobs a month since the spring.

    Companies that have recently announced job cuts include UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon, but those workforce reductions can take months to show up in the government’s data.

    The Labor Department’s report Wednesday also showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 750 to 216,750.

    The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Dec. 13 rose by 38,000 to 1.92 million, the government said.

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  • How a fast-moving $50 cash relief program buoyed needy families when SNAP payments were paused

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    Finances already looked tight for Jade Grant and her three children as she entered the year’s final months.

    “Everyone’s birthday is back-to-back,” the 32-year-old certified nursing assistant said. “You have holidays coming up. You have Thanksgiving. Everything is right there. And then, boom. No (food) stamps.”

    Grant is among the nearly 42 million lower-income Americans who get help buying groceries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. When the federal shutdown began in October, she wasn’t worried about losing her benefits — she said she is used to government “foolishness.”

    But circumstances got dicey when the budget impasse entered its second month and President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of freezing November SNAP payments. With one child who eats gluten free and another with many allergies, specialty items already drove up her grocery bill. Now Grant wondered how she’d put food on the table — especially with her youngest’s 6th birthday approaching.

    Then Grant logged into Propel, an app used by 5 million people to manage their electronic benefits transfers, where she saw a pop-up banner inviting her to apply for a relief program. Within a minute she’d completed a survey and about two days later she got a virtual $50 gift card.

    The total didn’t come close to her monthly SNAP allotment. But the Palm Bay, Florida, resident said it was enough to buy a customized “ Bluey ” birthday cake for her son.

    Nearly a quarter of a million families got that same cash injection from the nonprofit GiveDirectly as they missed SNAP deposits many need to feed their households. The collaboration with Propel proved to be the largest disaster response in the international cash assistance group’s history outside of COVID-19; non-pandemic records were set with the $12 million raised, more than 246,000 beneficiaries enrolled and 5,000 individual donors reached.

    Recipients are still recovering from the uncertainty of last month’s SNAP delays. Company surveys suggest many are dealing with the long-term consequences of borrowing money in early November when their benefits didn’t arrive on time, according to Propel CEO Jimmy Chen. At a time when users felt the existing safety net had fallen through, they credit the rapid payments for buoying them — both financially and emotionally.

    “It’s not a lot. But at the same time, it is a lot,” Grant said. “Because $50 can do a lot when you don’t have anything.”

    It’s not the first partnership for the antipoverty nonprofit and for-profit software company. They have previously combined GiveDirectly’s fast cash model with Propel’s verified user base to get money out to natural disaster survivors — including $1,000 last year to some households impacted by Hurricanes Milton and Helene.

    “This particular incident with the shutdown we saw as akin to a natural disaster,” Chen said, “in the sense that it created a really sudden and really acute form of hardship for many Americans across the country.”

    The scope differed this time. The “man-made disaster,” as GiveDirectly U.S. Country Director Dustin Palmer put it, was not geographically isolated. The benefits freeze impacted more people than they usually serve. SNAP costs almost $10 billion a month, Palmer said, so they never expected to raise enough money to replace the delayed benefits altogether.

    But 5,000 individual donors — plus $1 million gifts from Propel and New York nonprofit Robin Hood, as well as other major foundations’ support — provided a sizable pot. Palmer found that the issue resonated more than he expected.

    GiveDirectly reports that the median donation was $100. Palmer took that response as a sign the issue hit close for many Americans.

    “You and I know SNAP recipients. Maybe we’ve been SNAP recipients,” Palmer said. “So that was not a disaster in Central Texas where I’ve never been, but something in our communities.”

    The greatest question revolved around the total sum of each cash transfer. Should they reach more people with fewer dollars or vice versa? Los Angeles wildfire survivors, for example, got $3,500 each from a similar GiveDirectly campaign. But that’s because they wanted to provide enough to cover a month’s worth of lodging and transit to those who lost their houses.

    They settled on $50 because Palmer said they wanted a “stopgap” that represented “a meaningful trip to the grocery store.” To equitably focus their limited resources on the that would be missing the most support, Palmer said they targeted families with children that receive the maximum SNAP allotment. Propel’s software allowed them to send money as soon as the app detected that a family’s benefits hadn’t arrived at the usual time of the month.

    Recipients decided whether their prepaid debit cards arrived physically, which might allow them to take cash out of an ATM, or virtually, which could be used almost immediately. The split is usually pretty even, according to Palmer, but this time more than 90% of recipients went with the virtual option.

    “To me, that speaks to the speed and need for people,” Palmer said. “Just saying, ‘Oh yeah, I just need food today. I don’t want to wait to get it mailed.’”

    Dianna Tompkins relies on her SNAP balance to feed her toddler and 8-year-old child.

    “I watch it like a hawk, honestly,” she said.

    But she said she entered “panic mode” when she missed what is usually a $976 deposit last month. She’s a gig worker, completing DoorDash and Uber Eats orders when she finds the time.

    Her pantry is always stocked with non-perishables — canned goods, pastas, sauces — in case her unreliable van stops working and she can’t get to the store. But she couldn’t risk running out as uncertainty continued over the shutdown’s length and future SNAP payments.

    GiveDirectly’s $50 bought her milk and bread — not much but a “big help,” she said. Her local food pantries in Demotte, Indiana, had proven inconsistent. One week they gave far more than expected, she said, but the following week they were “so overwhelmed” that it almost wasn’t worth visiting.

    She said it’s “scary” the government “can just decide to not feed so many people.”

    “At least I have my safety net but not everybody’s lucky,” she said. “I’ve never trusted the government and that’s just a new solid reason why I don’t trust them.”

    Chen, the Propel CEO, said his company’s research suggests that November’s freeze damaged many recipients’ confidence in the government. Even with SNAP funded through the next fiscal year, Chen said, many respondents are concerned about another shutdown.

    “Now it’s introduced this seed of doubt for people that this really fundamental thing that they use to pay for food may not be there when they need it,” Chen said.

    The gap persists for many. Propel estimates that just over half of SNAP recipients got their benefits late last month. GiveDirectly launched an additional “mop-up” campaign to distribute cash retroactively for more than 8,000 people still reeling.

    The delay disrupted the financial balancing act that Grant had going. She put off payments for her electricity bill and car insurance.

    “Government shuts down and that just throws everything completely off,” she said.

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    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Trump announces lower drug price deals with 9 pharmaceutical companies

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    U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that nine drugmakers have agreed to lower the cost of their prescription drugs in the U.S.

    Pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi will now rein in Medicaid drug prices to match what they charged in other developed countries.

    As part of the deal, new drugs made by those companies will also be charged at the so-called “most-favored-nation” pricing across the country on any newly launched medications for all, including commercial and cash pay markets as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

    Drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on a number of factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which shield them from much of the cost.

    Patients in Medicaid, the state and federally funded program for people with low incomes, already pay a nominal co-payment of a few dollars to fill their prescriptions, but lower prices could help state budgets that fund the programs.

    Lower drug prices also will help patients who have no insurance coverage and little leverage to negotiate better deals on what they pay. But even steep discounts of 50% found through the administration’s website could still leave patients paying hundreds of dollars a month for some prescriptions.

    William Padula, a pharmaceutical and health economics professor at USC, said Medicaid already has the most favorable drug rates which in some cases will be close to what the “most-favored-nation” price is so it remains to be seen what other impacts it could have, such as more research and development.

    “It can’t be bad. I don’t see much downside but it’s hard to judge what the upside is,” Padula said.

    And while it is significant that Trump was able to get big drugmakers to the table to negotiate lower prices, it will take years to gage how effective this initiative is in terms of more people obtaining more of the medicines they need.

    “It’s good for their stock and it’s good for their future” research and development, Padula said of the pharmaceutical companies. “It’s clearly influential but will all this add up to a major effect? Nothing really matters here unless our health gets better as a country.”

    Trump administration officials said the drugmakers will also sell pharmacy-ready medicines on the TrumpRx platform, which is set to launch in January and will allow people to buy drugs directly from manufacturers.

    Companies such as Merck, GSK and Bristol Myers Squibb also agreed to donate significant supplies of active pharmaceutical ingredients to a national reserve and to formulate and distribute them into medications such as antibiotics, rescue inhalers and blood thinners as needed in an emergency.

    The New Jersey-based Bristol Myers Squibb further announced that it will be giving for free to the Medicaid program its signature blood thinner prescribed to reduce the risk of blood clots and stroke. Known as Eliquis, it is the company’s top prescribed drug as well as being one of Medicaid’s most widely-used medicines.

    Padula said the donations — which encompass some of the world’s most critical medicines — are a significant step toward health equity and an acknowledgement that the drugmakers can afford to seek profits elsewhere in their operations. Eliquis already has been one of the most profitable drugs ever made.

    “It’s a thoughtful health equity move that they can afford given that it’s been such a blockbuster,” Padula said of the Eliquis donation.

    Other major drugmakers including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly struck similar deals with the Trump administration earlier this year.

    Though individual terms were not disclosed, the administration has now negotiated lower drug prices with 14 companies since Trump publicly sent letters to executives at 17 pharmaceutical companies about the issue, noting that U.S. prices for brand-name drugs can be up to three times higher than averages elsewhere.

    Trump said he effectively threatened the pharmaceutical companies with 10% tariffs to get them to “do the right thing.”

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  • Trump administration says lower prices for 15 Medicare drugs will save taxpayers billions

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    NEW YORK — Pharmaceutical companies have agreed to slash the Medicare prices for 15 prescription drugs after months of negotiations, reductions that are expected to produce billions in savings for taxpayers and older adults, the Trump administration said.

    But the net prices it unveiled for a 30-day supply of each drug are not what Medicare recipients will pay at their pharmacy counters, since those final amounts will depend on each individual’s plan and how much they spend on prescriptions in a given year.

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted the deals as part of the administration’s efforts to address affordability concerns among Americans. The Medicare drug negotiation program that made them possible is mandated by law and began under President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “President Trump directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people,” Kennedy said in a statement Tuesday evening. “As we work to Make America Healthy Again, we will use every tool at our disposal to deliver affordable health care to seniors.”

    The announcement marks the completion of a second round of negotiations under a 2022 law that allows Medicare to haggle over the price it pays on the most popular and expensive prescription drugs used by older Americans, bringing the total number of negotiated drug prices to 25. The new round of negotiated prices will go into effect in 2027. Reduced prices for the inaugural round of 10 drugs negotiated by the Biden administration last year will go into effect in January.

    The latest negotiated prices apply to some of the prescription medications on which Medicare spends the most money, including the massively popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy. Some of the other drugs involved in the negotiations include Trelegy Ellipta, which treats asthma; Otezla, a psoriatic arthritis drug; and various drugs that treat diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome and different forms of cancer.

    Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, said the administration delivered “substantially better outcomes for taxpayers and seniors in the Medicare Part D program” than the previous year’s deals.

    Under the first round of Medicare price negotiations, the Biden administration said the program would have saved about $6 billion on net covered prescription drug costs, or about 22%, if it had been in effect the previous year. The Trump administration said its latest round would have saved the government about $8.5 billion in net spending, or 36%, if it had been in effect last year.

    It’s unclear exactly how much money the newly announced deals could save Medicare beneficiaries when they are buying prescription drugs at the pharmacy because those costs are determined by various individual factors.

    A new rule that kicked off this year also caps out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000, giving some relief to older adults affected by high-cost prescriptions. The administration said estimated out-of-pocket savings for Medicare beneficiaries with drug plans is about $685 million.

    Spencer Perlman, director of health care research at Veda Partners, said the Trump administration’s improved outcomes probably resulted from the mix of drugs being negotiated and lessons learned from the first year of negotiations.

    Net drug prices are proprietary, he said, but “if we take the administration at their word, I think it demonstrates that they have secured meaningful price concessions for seniors, meaning the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program is working as intended.”

    The GLP-1 weight-loss drugs that were part of the negotiations have been especially scrutinized for their high out-of-pocket costs. Yet it’s still unclear to what extent Medicare beneficiaries who want to use the drugs to treat obesity will be able to do so.

    Medicare has long been prohibited from paying for weight-loss treatments, but a separate deal recently announced between the Trump administration and two pharmaceutical companies included plans for a pilot program that will expand coverage for the drugs to additional high-risk obese and overweight people.

    The Trump administration this year has also negotiated several unrelated deals with drug companies to lower the cost of their products for the wider population.

    Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, have sued over the Medicare drug negotiations enabled by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and remain opposed to them.

    “Whether it is the IRA or MFN, government price setting for medicines is the wrong policy for America,” Alex Schriver, senior vice president of public affairs at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, said in a statement. “These flawed policies also threaten future medical innovation by siphoning $300 billion from biopharmaceutical research, undermining the American economy and our ability to compete globally.”

    Next year, Medicare will negotiate prices for another round of 15 drugs, including physician-administered drugs for the first time.

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  • Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week as layoffs remain low

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    WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits declined last week in a sign that overall layoffs remain low, even as several high-profile companies have announced job cuts.

    U.S. applications for unemployment benefits in the week ending Nov. 22 dropped 6,000 from the previous week to 216,000, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The figure is below the 230,000 forecast by economists, according to a survey by data provider FactSet.

    Applications for unemployment aid are seen as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS and Amazon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not yet be reflected in the claims data.

    The four-week average of claims, which softens some of the week-to-week volatility, dropped 1,000 to 223,750.

    For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job.

    The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 15 rose 7,000 to 1.96 million, the government said. The increase is a sign that the unemployed are taking longer to find new work.

    Last week, the government said that hiring picked up a bit in September, when employers added 119,000 new jobs. Yet the report also showed employers had shed jobs in August. And the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, its highest level in four years, as more Americans came off the sidelines to look for work but did not all immediately find jobs.

    On Tuesday, the government reported that retail sales slowed in September after three months of healthy increases. Consumer confidence plunged to its second-lowest level in five years, while wholesale inflation eased a bit.

    The data suggests that both the economy and inflation are slowing, which boosted financial markets’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will reduce its key interest rate at its next meeting Dec. 9-10.

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  • Trump: Democrats’ message to military ‘seditious behavior’

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    President Donald Trump is accusing half a dozen Democratic lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” after the lawmakers called on U.S. military members to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.” The 90-second video was first posted early Tuesday from…

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    By MEG KINNARD – Associated Press

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  • What to know about the impacts Medicaid cuts are having on rural health care

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    FRANCONIA, N.H. (AP) — The closing of a health center in rural New Hampshire has raised concerns that the projected cuts in Medicaid are already taking a toll.

    Last month, a site of the Ammonoosuc Community Health Services in Franconia, a town of around 1,000 people, closed for good.

    Ammonoosuc officials and a Democratic senator have blamed Medicaid cuts for the closure of the facility that served 1,400 patients from Franconia, Easton, Lincoln and Sugar Hill. These are all tiny communities around the White Mountains, whose patients typically are older and sicker than in other parts of the state.

    Threats to rural health care

    The closure of the Franconia center reflects the financial struggles facing community health centers and rural health care systems more broadly amid Medicaid cuts and a feared spike in health insurance rates. The government shutdown, which ended last week, was driven by a Democratic demand to extend tax credits, which ensure low- and middle-income people can afford health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.

    More than 100 hospitals closed over the past decade, according to the Center For Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a policy and advocacy group, and more than 700 more hospitals are at risk of closure. A branch of the HealthFirst Family Care Center, a facility in Canaan, New Hampshire also announced it was closing at the end of October due in part to “changes in Medicaid reimbursement and federal funding” for these facilities.

    On average, the federally-funded community health centers like the one in Franconia are losing money, relying heavily on cash reserves, making service changes and sometimes closing locations to stay afloat, NACHC found. Nearly half have less than 90 days’ cash on hand, according to the association. And the future is even more bleak with at least 2 million community health center patients expected to lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 and 2 million more who are newly uninsured turning to the centers for care.

    Hard choices for CEO

    Ed Shanshala, the CEO of Ammonoosuc, said the Medicaid cuts are to blame for the closure of the Franconia center.

    Shanshala runs a network of five health centers in New Hampshire which relies more than $2 million in federal funding — out of a $12 million budget. He faced a $500,000 shortfall due to the cuts and realized closing Franconia would save about half that money. It also was the only facility where they leased space.

    “We’re really left with no choice,” Shanshala said, adding the closure would save $250,000. Finding additional cuts is hard, given that the centers provide services to anyone under 200% of federal poverty levels, he said. And if he cuts additional services, Shanshala fears some patients will end up in a hospital emergency room or “stop engaging in health care period.”

    Patients struggle to adjust

    Susan Bushby, a 70-year-old housekeeper, talked about how much she loved the staff and feared going to a new health center. She wouldn’t know her way around a larger facility and wouldn’t have the same rapport with the people there.

    “I was very disturbed. I was down right angry,” said Bushby, who was brought to tears as she discussed the challenges of starting over at a new health center. “I just really like it there. I don’t know, I’m just really going to miss it. It’s really hard for me to explain, but it’s going to be sad.”

    Marsha Luce, whose family moved from Washington, D.C. area, in 2000, is especially concerned about the impact on her 72-year-old husband, a former volunteer firefighter who has a left ear and part of his jaw removed due to cancer. He also has heart and memory issues.

    She worries about longer waits to see his doctor and the loss of relationships built up over decades in Franconia.

    “It’s going to be hard,” she said. “But it’s a relationship that’s going to be missed. It’s a relationship that you can talk to people and you tell them something and you go, yeah, well, I’ve had cancer. Oh, let’s see. Oh, yeah. There it is in your chart. Do you know what I mean?”

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  • States scramble to send full SNAP food benefits

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    With the longest U.S. government shutdown over, state officials said Thursday they are working quickly to get full SNAP food benefits to millions of people who made do with little-to-no assistance for the past couple of weeks.

    A back-and-forth series of court rulings and shifting policies from President Donald Trump’s administration has led to a patchwork distribution of November benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. While some states already had issued full SNAP benefits, about two-thirds of states had issued only partial benefits or none at all before the government shutdown ended late Wednesday, according to an Associated Press tally.


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    By GEOFF MULVIHILL and DAVID A. LIEB – Associated Press

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  • Republicans promised health care negotiations after the shutdown, but Democrats are wary

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    WASHINGTON — Now that the government shutdown is over, House and Senate Republicans say they will negotiate with Democrats on whether to extend COVID-era tax credits that help tens of millions of Americans afford their health care premiums. But finding bipartisan agreement could be difficult, if not impossible, before the subsidies expire at the end of the year.

    The shutdown ended this week after a small group of Democrats made a deal with Republicans senators who promised a vote by mid-December on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. But there is no guaranteed outcome, and many Republicans have made clear they want the credits to expire.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called the subsidies a “boondoggle” immediately after the House voted Wednesday to end the shutdown, and President Donald Trump said the Obama-era health overhaul was “disaster” as he signed the reopening bill into law.

    It is far from the outcome that Democrats had hoped for as they kept the government closed for 43 days, demanding that Republicans negotiate with them on an extension before premiums sharply increase. But they say they will try again as the expiration date approaches.

    “It remains to be seen if they are serious,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. But he said Democrats “are just getting started.”

    Republicans have been meeting privately to discuss the issue. Some want to extend the subsidies, with changes, to avoid the widespread increases in premiums. Others, like Johnson and Trump, want to start a new conversation about overhauling “Obamacare” entirely — a redo after a similar effort in 2017 failed.

    Health care has long been one of the most difficult issues on Capitol Hill, marked by deep ideological and political divides. Partisan disagreement over 2010 law has persisted for more than a decade, and relationships are already strained from weeks of partisan tensions over the shutdown.

    Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said that while Republicans have promised negotiations and a Senate vote, Democrats are wary. She noted that Johnson has not committed to anything in the House.

    “Do I trust any of them? Hell no,” DeLauro said.

    If the two sides cannot agree, as many as 24 million people who get their health care from the exchanges created by the law could see their premiums go up Jan. 1. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, one of the Democrats who struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to reopen the government, said she thinks an agreement on the tax credits is possible.

    During the talks that led to the shutdown’s end, Shaheen said she and other moderate Democrats sat across from Thune and “looked him eye to eye” as he committed to a serious effort.

    “We’re going to have a chance to vote on a bill that we will write by mid-December, in a way that gives us a chance to build — hopefully build — bipartisan support to get that through,” Shaheen said.

    While Democrats would like to see a permanent extension of the tax credits, most realize that is unlikely. Just before the shutdown ended, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York proposed a one-year extension and a bipartisan committee to address Republican demands for changes to the ACA. But Thune said that was a “nonstarter” as the government remained shut down.

    In the House, Democrats have proposed a three-year extension.

    While Republicans have long sought to scrap Obamacare, they have had challenges over the years in figuring out what would replace it. That problem plagued the 2017 effort, when then-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cast the deciding vote to kill a bill on the Senate floor that was short on detail.

    Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., have proposed overhauling the law to create accounts that would direct the money to individuals instead of insurance companies. Those are ideas that Trump echoed as he signed the funding bill Wednesday evening.

    “I want the money to go directly to you, the people,” Trump said.

    It is unclear exactly how that would work, and scrapping the law in its current form would take months, if not years, to negotiate, even if Republicans could find the votes to do it.

    Some moderate Republicans in the House have said they want to work with Democrats to extend the subsidies before the deadline, which is only weeks away. In a letter to Thune and Schumer on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the Republican co-chair of the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, encouraged negotiations.

    “Our sense of urgency cannot be greater,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “Our willingness to cooperate has no limits.”

    So far, though, Senate Republicans have been meeting on their own to figure out their own differences.

    “Right now, it’s just getting consensus among ourselves,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said Monday after GOP members of the Senate Finance Committee met to discuss possible ways forward.

    Tillis is supportive of extending the tax credits, but said lawmakers also need to find a way to reduce costs. If the two sides cannot eventually agree, Tillis said, Republicans may have to try and figure out a way to do it on their own, potentially using budget maneuvers that enabled them to pass Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” this summer without any Democratic votes.

    “We should have that in our back pocket too,” Tillis said.

    Some House Democrats have raised the possibility that there could be another shutdown if they are unable to win concessions on health care. The bill signed by Trump will fully fund some parts of the government, but others run out of money again at the end of January if Congress does not act.

    “I think it depends on the vulnerable House Republicans who are not going to be able to go back to their constituents without telling them that they’ve done something on health care,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.

    “We’ll just have to see” if there could be another shutdown, said Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif.

    Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said he is “not going to vote to endorse their cruelty” if Republicans do not extend the subsidies.

    DeLauro said that Republicans have wanted to repeal the ACA since it was first enacted. “That’s where they’re trying to go,” she said.

    “When it comes to January 30 we’ll see what progress has been made,” she said.

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  • Trump administration renews Supreme Court appeal to keep full SNAP payments frozen

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    President Donald Trump’s administration returned to the Supreme Court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the SNAP federal food aid program frozen while the government is shut down, even as some families struggled to put food on the table.

    The request is the latest in a flurry of legal activity over how the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries should proceed during the historic U.S. government shutdown. Lower courts have ruled that the government must keep full payments flowing, but the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to keep them frozen for now.

    The high court is expected to rule Tuesday.

    The seesawing rulings so far have created a situation where beneficiaries in some states, including Hawaii and New Jersey, have received their full monthly allocations and those in others, such as Nebraska and West Virginia, have seen nothing.

    Brandi Johnson, 48, of St. Louis, said she’s struggling to make the $20 she has left in her SNAP account stretch. Johnson said she has been skipping meals the past two weeks to make sure her three teenage children have something to eat. She is also helping care for her infant granddaughter, who has food allergies, and her 80-year-old mother.

    She said food pantries have offered little help in recent days. Many require patrons to live in a certain ZIP code or are dedicated to helping the elderly first.

    “I think about it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, literally,” Johnson said. “Because you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to eat.”

    Millions receive aid while others wait

    The Trump administration argued that lower court orders requiring the full funding of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program wrongly affect ongoing negotiations in Congress about ending the shutdown. Supreme Court Solicitor General D. John Sauer called the funding lapse tragic, but said judges shouldn’t be deciding how to handle it.

    The Senate Monday passed a compromise funding package that would end the government shutdown and refill SNAP funds. It now goes to the House for consideration.

    Trump’s administration initially said SNAP benefits would not be available in November because of the shutdown. After some states and nonprofit groups sued, judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely.

    The administration then said it would use an emergency reserve fund to provide 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. On Thursday, Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said that wasn’t good enough, and ordered full funding for SNAP benefits by Friday.

    Some states acted quickly to direct their EBT vendors to disburse full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients. Millions of people in at least a dozen states — all with Democratic governors — received the full amount to buy groceries before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put McConnell’s order on hold Friday night, pending further deliberation by an appeals court.

    Delays cause complications for some beneficiaries

    Millions more people still have not received SNAP payments for November, because their states were waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP. Several states have made partial payments, including Texas, where officials said money was going on cards for some beneficiaries Monday.

    “Continued delays deepen suffering for children, seniors, and working families, and force nonprofits to shoulder an even heavier burden,” Diane Yentel, President and CEO, National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement Monday. “If basic decency and humanity don’t compel the administration to assure food security for all Americans, then multiple federal court judges finding its actions unlawful must.”

    Trump’s administration has argued that the judicial order to provide full benefits violates the Constitution by infringing on the spending power of the legislative and executive branches.

    Wisconsin, which was among the first to load full benefits after McConnell’s order, had its federal reimbursement frozen. The state’s SNAP account could be depleted as soon as Monday, leaving no money to reimburse stores that sell food to SNAP recipients, according to a court filing.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James said Monday that some cardholders have been turned away by stores concerned that they won’t be reimbursed — something she called to stop.

    New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said Trump was fighting “for the right to starve Americans.”

    “It’s the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen in public life,” he said.

    The latest rulings keep payments on hold, at least for now

    States administering SNAP payments continue to face uncertainty over whether they can — and should — provide full monthly benefits during the ongoing legal battles.

    The Trump administration over the weekend demanded that states “undo” full benefits that were paid during a one-day window after a federal judge ordered full funding and before a Supreme Court justice paused that order.

    A federal appeals court in Boston left the full benefits order in place late Sunday, though the Supreme Court order ensures the government won’t have to pay out for at least 48 hours.

    “The record here shows that the government sat on its hands for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people who rely on SNAP received no benefits a week into November and counting,” Judge Julie Rikleman of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals wrote.

    U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, presiding over a case filed in Boston by Democratic state officials, on Monday paused the USDA’s request from Saturday that states “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits.”

    In a hearing later that Monday, Talwani said that communication to states was confusing, especially because the threat came just a day after USDA sent letters to states saying SNAP would be paid in full.

    Federal government lawyer Tyler Becker said the order was only intended for states to receive the full amount of SNAP benefits, and “had nothing to do with beneficiaries.”

    Talwani said she would issue a full order soon.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island; Nicholas Riccardi in Denver; and Stephen Groves and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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  • Grocery gift cards at Salem Y available to residents losing SNAP benefits

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    SALEM — The city of Salem’s Food Policy Council and the Salem Children’s Alliance have partnered with the Salem YMCA to make donated grocery store gift cards available for residents who lost their SNAP benefits.

    “Thanks to the many generous Salem residents who have already stepped up to donate grocery gift cards to support our neighbors in need during this difficult time,” Mayor Dominick Pangallo said.


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    Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202

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    By Michael McHugh | Staff Writer

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  • Loss of SNAP benefits leads to long food pantry lines

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    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — People across the country formed long lines for free meals and groceries at food pantries and drive-through giveaways over the weekend after monthly benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, were suddenly cut off because of the ongoing government shutdown.

    In the New York borough of the Bronx, about 200 more people than usual showed up at the World of Life Christian Fellowship International pantry, many bundled in winter hats and coats and pushing collapsible shopping carts as they waited in a line that spanned multiple city blocks. Some arrived as early as 4 a.m. to choose from pallets of fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, juice, dry goods and prepared sandwiches.


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    By SUSAN HAIGH and DYLAN LOVAN – Associated Press

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  • SNAP benefits cut off during shutdown, driving long lines at food pantries

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    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — People across the country formed long lines for free meals and groceries at food pantries and drive-through giveaways Saturday, after monthly benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, were suddenly cut off because of the ongoing government shutdown.

    In the New York borough of the Bronx, about 200 more people than usual showed up at the World of Life Christian Fellowship International pantry, many bundled in winter hats and coats and pushing collapsible shopping carts as they waited in a line that spanned multiple city blocks. Some arrived as early as 4 a.m. to choose from pallets of fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, juice, dry goods and prepared sandwiches.

    Mary Martin, who volunteers at the pantry, also relies on it regularly for food to supplement her SNAP payments. She said she usually splits her roughly $200 a month in SNAP benefits between herself and her two adult sons, one of whom has six children and is especially dependent on the assistance.

    “If I didn’t have the pantry to come to, I don’t know how we would make it,” Martin said.

    “I’m not gonna see my grandkids suffer.”

    The Department of Agriculture planned to withhold payments to the food program starting Saturday until two federal judges ordered the administration to make them. However it was unclear as to when the debit cards that beneficiaries use could be reloaded after the ruling, sparking fear and confusion among many recipients.

    In an apparent response to President Donald Trump, who said he would provide the money but wanted more legal direction from the court, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell in Rhode Island ordered the government to report back by Monday on how it would fund SNAP accounts.

    McConnell, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said the Trump administration must either make a full payment by that day or, if it decides to tap $3 billion in a contingency fund, figure out how to do that by Wednesday.

    The delay in SNAP payments, a major piece of the nation’s social safety net that serves about 42 million people, has highlighted the financial vulnerabilities that many face. At the Bronx food pantry, the Rev. John Udo-Okon said “people from all walks of life” are seeking help now.

    “The pantry is no longer for the poor, for the elderly, for the needy. The pantry now is for the whole community, everybody,” Udo-Okon said. “You see people will drive in their car and come and park and wait to see if they can get food.”

    In Austell, Georgia, people in hundreds of cars in drive-through lanes picked up nonperishable and perishable bags of food. Must Ministries said it handed out food to about 1,000 people, more than a typical bimonthly food delivery.

    Families in line said they worried about not getting SNAP benefits in time for Thanksgiving.

    At a drive-through food giveaway at the Calvary Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, SNAP recipient James Jackson, 74, said he is frustrated that people are being hurt by decisions made in Washington and lawmakers should try harder to understand challenges brought by poverty and food insecurity.

    “If you’ve never been poor, you don’t know what it is to be poor,” Jackson said. “I hope that it turns around. I hope that people get their SNAP benefits, and I hope we just come together where we can love each other and feed each other and help each other.”

    While there is typically a long line for Calvary Baptist Church’s drive-through events, the Rev. Samuel L. Whitlow said, the walk-in food pantry has seen increased demand recently with roughly 60 additional people showing up this week.

    And in Norwich, Connecticut, the St. Vincent De Paul soup kitchen and food pantry had 10 extra volunteers working Saturday to help a wave of expected newcomers, making sure they felt comfortable and understood the services available. Besides groceries and hot meals, the site was providing pet food, toiletries and blood pressure checks.

    “They’re embarrassed. They have shame. So you have to deal with that as well,” director Jill Corbin said. “But we do our best to just try to welcome people.”

    ___

    Haigh reported from Norwich, Connecticut. Associated Press photographer Mike Stewart in Austell, Georgia, contributed.

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  • Government shutdown threatens to delay home heating aid for millions of low-income families

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    HARTFORD, Conn. — Jacqueline Chapman is a retired school aide who relies on a $630 monthly Social Security check to get by. She was navigating the loss of her federal food aid benefits when she learned the assistance she receives for heating her Philadelphia apartment may also be at risk.

    “I feel like I’m living in scary times. It’s not easy to rest when you know you have things to do with limited accounts, limited funds. There isn’t too much you can do,” said Chapman, 74.

    Chapman relies on the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps millions of low-income households pay to heat and cool their homes.

    With temperatures beginning to drop in areas across the United States, some states are warning that funding for the program is being delayed because of the federal government shutdown, now in its fifth week.

    The anticipated delay comes as a majority of the 5.9 million households served by the federally funded heating and cooling assistance program are grappling with the sudden postponement of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries. Money is running out for other safety net programs as well and energy prices are soaring.

    “The impact, even if it’s temporary, on many of the nation’s poor families is going to be profound if we don’t solve this problem,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state directors of the program. Commonly called LIHEAP, it serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and federally recognized tribes.

    “These are important income supports that are all potentially heading toward a cliff at the same time,” Wolfe said. “And I can’t point to a similar time in recent history where we’ve had this.”

    LIHEAP, created in 1981, assists families in covering utility bills or the cost of paying for fuels delivered to homes, such as home heating oil. It has received bipartisan congressional support for decades.

    States manage the program. They receive an allotment of federal money each year based on a formula that largely takes into account state weather patterns, energy costs and low-income population data.

    While President Donald Trump proposed zero funding for the program in his budget, it was anticipated that Congress would fund LIHEAP for the budget year that began Oct. 1. But since Congress has not yet passed a full 2026 spending bill, states have not gotten their new allocations yet.

    Some states, including Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Minnesota, have announced their LIHEAP programs are being delayed by the government shutdown.

    In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration said it cannot front the $200 million-plus in federal LIHEAP aid it had expected to help pay heating bills for some 300,000 low-income households. It is predicting payments will not go out until at least December, instead of November, as is customary.

    Minnesota’s energy assistance program is processing applications but the state’s Department of Commerce said federal LIHEAP dollars will likely be delayed by a month. The agency does not plan to pay recipients’ heating bills until the shutdown ends.

    “As temperatures begin to drop, this delay could have serious impacts,” the agency said. The program services 120,000 households, both homeowners and renters, that include many older adults, young children and people with disabilities.

    Connecticut has enough money to set aside to pay heating bills through at least the end of November or December, according to the group that helps administer LIHEAP. But the program faces uncertainty if the shutdown persists. Connecticut lawmakers are considering covering the cost temporarily with state budget reserves.

    “The situation will get much more perilous for folks who do need those resources as we move later into the heating season,” said Rhonda Evans, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Community Action. More than 100,000 households were served last year.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the assistance program, blamed the federal shutdown and the delay in LIHEAP payments on congressional Democrats and said the Trump administration is committed to reopening the government.

    “Once the government reopens, ACF will work swiftly to administer annual awards,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within HHS. The spokesperson did not directly answer whether the timing could be affected by the administration’s earlier decision to fire workers who run the LIHEAP program.

    Wolfe, from the group that represents state program directors, predicts there could be delays into January. He noted there are questions over who will approve states’ program plans and how the money will be released when it becomes available.

    “Once you’ve fired the staff, things just slow down,” he said.

    Chapman, the retired school aide, may be eligible for a program through her gas utility to prevent being shut off this winter. But the roughly 9% of LIHEAP recipients who rely on deliverable fuels such as heating oil, kerosene, propane and wood pellets, typically do not have such protections.

    Electric and natural gas companies are usually regulated by the state and can be told not to shut people off while the state waits to receive its share of the LIHEAP money, Wolfe said. But it is different when it involves a small oil or propane company, fuels more common in the Northeast.

    “If you’re a heating oil dealer, we can’t tell that dealer, ‘Look, continue to provide heating oil to your low-income customers on the possibility you’ll get your money back,’” Wolfe said.

    Mark Bain, 67, who lives in Bloomfield, Connecticut, with his son, a student at the University of Connecticut, started receiving financial assistance for his home heating oil needs three years ago.

    “I remember the first winter before I knew about this program. I was desperate. I was on fumes,” said Bains, who is retired and relies on income from Social Security and a small annuity. “I was calling around to my social services people to find out what I could do.”

    He has been approved this year for $500 in assistance but he has a half tank of oil left and cannot call for more until it is nearly empty. By that point, he is hoping there will be enough federal money left to fill it. He typically needs three deliveries to get through a winter.

    Bains said he can “get by” if he does not receive the help this year.

    “I would turn the heat down to like 62 (degrees) and throw on another blanket, you know, just to get through,” he said.

    ___

    Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., and Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

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  • Instacart, DoorDash among companies offering discounts to SNAP recipients

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    Instacart said Friday it will offer customers who receive SNAP benefits 50% on their next grocery order to ease strain as the government prepares to cut off food aid payments.

    Instacart said any customer who placed an order in October using a SNAP/EBT card will be eligible for the discount, which will be available even if the government makes the payments as planned on Nov. 1. Instacart said it will also triple its usual donations to more than 300 food banks.

    The San Francisco-based grocery delivery company said both programs amount to $5 million in direct relief.

    “As SNAP funding faces unprecedented disruption and food banks brace for longer lines, we’re focused on practical, immediate solutions: helping families who use SNAP stretch their grocery dollars and helping food banks stock up to support their communities,” said Dani Dudeck, Instacart’s chief corporate affairs officer.

    Instacart is one of several big companies reacting to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown.

    DoorDash, a delivery company also based in San Francisco, said earlier this week it would waive service and delivery fees for an estimated 300,000 orders for SNAP recipients in November. DoorDash said it would also deliver 1 million meals from food banks for free.

    DoorDash said more than 2.4 million customers have a SNAP/EBT card linked to their DoorDash account.

    Instacart didn’t immediately say how many of its customers receive SNAP benefits. The company began accepting online SNAP payments in 2020. It offers discounted memberships for SNAP recipients and zero delivery fees on orders over $35.

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