By Ryan Hanrahan
Politico’s Grace Yarrow reported that “millions of low-income Americans will lose access to food aid on Nov. 1, when half of states plan to cut off benefits due to the government shutdown. Twenty-five states told POLITICO that they are issuing notices informing participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative — that they won’t receive checks next month.”
“Those states include California, Arkansas, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi and New Jersey. Others didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publication,” Yarrow reported. “USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service recently told every state that they’d need to hold off on distributing benefits until further notice, according to multiple state agencies.”
“Nutrition programs like SNAP and another one serving low-income mothers and infants have been caught in the crossfire of lawmakers’ spending negotiations, with the shutdown now in its fourth week,” Yarrow reported. “States are scrambling to maintain the programs using money from their own coffers and emergency funding from the Trump administration, but that pot is rapidly decreasing.”
“The administration would have to find more than $8 billion to keep SNAP afloat if the shutdown continues,” Yarrow reported. “‘We just can’t do it without the government being open,’ said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a NewsNation interview Tuesday. ‘By Nov. 1, we are very hopeful this government reopens and we can begin moving that money out. But right now, half the states are shut down on SNAP.'”
Source : illinois.edu