‘You cannot crowdsource $8 billion.’ Here’s what to know about the lapse in SNAP benefits

A legal battle between the Trump administration and state and local governments over funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has left millions of Americans unsure when their next benefits payment will arrive.

WATCH: Millions face losing SNAP benefits as shutdown continues with no end in sight

That includes Tina Gigioli, who lost her job at an educational technology company last summer due to budget cuts.

“I had what I thought was a stable job. I had savings. I had done all the things you are ‘supposed to do.’ And the rug was just pulled out from under me,” Gigioli said.

When her severance pay ran out in the fall of 2024, she still needed to feed herself and her newborn, so she applied for government benefits.

Through the state of Maryland, she qualified for unemployment payments, which lasted until she found a new job, and food assistance programs such as SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which she still uses.

Although her SNAP benefits have fluctuated, from as low as $23 to as high as $338 per month, Gigioli has found the $200 in monthly assistance she currently receives helpful while she works part-time, raises her son on her own, and attends school to get her master’s degree in social work.

But as the federal government shutdown drags past 30 days, experts say the Trump administration’s refusal to fund SNAP on Nov. 1 could leave Gigioli, her son and nearly 42 million other recipients without access to food assistance for the first time in the program’s history.

On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was likely illegally suspending SNAP benefits, and ordered the administration to indicate by Monday whether it will authorize at least part of the funding. A second judge also ruled against the government, blocking the administration from suspending the benefits.

The rulings come after the attorneys general of more than two dozen states sued the Trump administration Tuesday, asking the court to order the USDA to reinstate the funding. The National Council of Nonprofits, local governments including Baltimore, Maryland and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and other organizations filed the second federal lawsuit Thursday.

Even if the issue were immediately resolved, experts tell PBS News that many SNAP recipients are unlikely to get their benefits on time.

Who relies on SNAP?

Around 42 million Americans receive monthly SNAP benefits, according to the USDA, at an average of about $187 per person.

In 2023, nearly 80% of households receiving SNAP benefits included a child, an elderly person or a non-elderly person with a disability. About three quarters of SNAP households had a gross monthly income at or below the poverty level.

According to a PBS News analysis, more than half of SNAP recipients live in states that voted for Trump in 2024. But in states that leaned more heavily blue or red — ones that went for either Trump or former Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 10 points — nearly the same amount of people rely on SNAP.

How is SNAP administered and funded?

The USDA is responsible for funding SNAP, and the money is distributed by states. Administrative costs for the program are split evenly between states and the federal government. Each state is also responsible for reviewing their residents’ benefits applications and certifying SNAP eligibility.

Supplemental food assistance was first established nationwide with the Food Stamp Act of 1964, and expanded from serving half a million people that year to 15 million a decade later. The 2008 Farm Bill renamed the program to SNAP and encouraged states to follow suit in an effort to reduce stigma for recipients.

SNAP has been reauthorized periodically by farm bills. The most recent farm bill passed in 2018 and authorized funds for SNAP through 2023, though two one-year extensions kept the program funded through September 2025, which is the end of the fiscal year.

Why did the USDA suspend SNAP payments?

With the government shut down, and Congress unable to negotiate a funding bill, the federal government said it did not have sufficient money to continue paying for SNAP in November.

On Oct. 10, the USDA sent a letter to state agencies directing them not to send the files documenting SNAP recipients to the contractors that administer funds to people’s electronic benefit cards. The letter told the states to hold the files and await further instructions.

Then, the agency followed up on Oct. 24 with state agencies, informing them that Food and Nutrition Service is “suspending all November 2025 benefit allotments until such time as sufficient federal funding is provided” and instructing them to “take immediate action to implement this suspension.”

There are logistical complications for actually issuing the money, said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. That means even if the administration follows the judges’ rulings, it’s too late for payments to be sent on time.

This huge gap in funding means that for the first time, millions of largely low-income people won’t have access to potentially hundreds of dollars of food assistance in the coming weeks.

Why this shutdown is different

In every previous shutdown, the government has found a way to fund SNAP.

When the government shut down in 2018 into 2019, during Trump’s first term, the USDA moved SNAP benefits up a month when the specter of a funding lapse began to appear. At the time, the agency used creative methods to keep the program running — something many experts believe the administration has the authority and ability to do today.

A woman holds a sign reading “Save Our SNAP,” as food aid benefits will be suspended starting Nov. 1 amid the ongoing government shutdown, during “A Rally for SNAP” on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston, Oct. 28, 2025. Photo by Brian Snyder/ Reuters

One option would be to use the SNAP contingency fund, which likely has between $5 and $6 billion in it, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That would cover a little more than half of the $8 billion gap in funding, said Georgetown University law professor David Super. But the federal government also has “sweeping authority” to transfer more money into the contingency fund, he said.

Transferring money is how the administration kept WIC funded in October, Super said.

“The same authority they used to shift money from child nutrition into WIC, they could use to shift the money from child nutrition into SNAP. So they certainly are capable of funding the entire benefit,” Super said.

That was how USDA envisioned needing to recall employees during a shutdown in their “Lapse of Funding Plan,” published Sept. 30.

“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown,” the plan said. “These multi-year contingency funds are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.”

The plan, which originally appeared on the USDA’s website, appears to have been removed in October.

WATCH: Government shutdown reaches 5th week with important deadlines looming

Now, the Trump administration disagrees that they can use the contingency fund. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said there aren’t “just pots of $9.2 billion sitting around,” and has argued that the administration doesn’t have the legal authority to transfer funds into SNAP.

Volunteers pack boxes of food along an assembly line at the Food Bank of the Rockies Distribution Center, the largest food bank in the region, weeks into the continuing government shutdown, in Denver, Oct. 22, 2025. Photo by Mark Makela/ Reuters

The circumstances during this shutdown are different from those seven years ago, said Matt Lawrence, law professor at Emory University. And the legal questions are unanswered, he said.

“Shutdowns have a lot of these legal questions in them about what operates and what doesn’t that are resolved first by the executive branch in the heat of the moment, in the heat of shutdown,” Lawrence said.

That means the choices made by the executive branch tend to support their policy decisions or pin the blame of the shutdown on the opposite party. It’s not unique to this administration, he added.

In 2019, the first Trump administration used “the flexibility of the law to minimize the impact of the shutdown on SNAP beneficiaries. Presumably they did that because that was the way they thought it would help them to win the shutdown,” he said.

What happens next?

It’s unclear how the federal government will respond to the judges’ rulings. In the meantime, states are left scrambling to try and prevent their residents from going hungry.

Some states have said they will try to make up the full or partial benefits; the governors of Virginia and Delaware have declared states of emergency and are using state funds to pay SNAP recipients 25% of their benefits each week of the month. But the cost to states could be enormous, and the administration has told states that they should not expect reimbursement.

Other states are trying to help without directly covering the cost of lapsed SNAP benefits. Maryland and Colorado are each directing $10 million in emergency funds to nonprofits that will aid in food assistance and distribution. But those states each receive around $120 million in SNAP benefits monthly.

Gigioli has looked into food banks in Maryland, but she thinks she can make her benefits stretch a little bit longer. She also feels that there are needier families than hers, and she wants to make sure they have access to food.

WATCH: As federal workers miss paychecks during shutdown, many turn to food banks for relief

“I’m very much a planner,” she said. “I have spent the last couple days brainstorming what are the best foods that I can stretch for myself and my son and make sure that we’re still fed.”

With food banks already stretched thin, it’s not clear if they’ll be able to serve millions more Americans.

“You cannot crowdsource $8 billion to prevent the harm that will come from the failure of the administration to follow the law and fund the program as intended,” Bauer said.