Uncertainty weighs on SNAP recipients as shutdown drags into new month

John Yang:

Good evening, I'm John Yang. There is uncertainty tonight for the tens of millions of low income Americans who rely on the government's biggest nutrition program. Two federal judges have told the Trump administration it must use available emergency funds to provide at least partial benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, what used to be called food stamps.

This afternoon, one of the judges said full SNAP benefit payments must be made by Monday. But even if the administration complies, there will likely still be at least a temporary lapse in benefits. Grace Yarrow is POLITICO's Food and Agriculture policy reporter.

Grace, why is that? Why would there still be a lapse even if the administration starts putting out this money?

Grace Yarrow, POLITICO:

Absolutely. So USDA, which controls SNAP, told state agencies and state administrators of the program starting October 10th, they put out a memo to states instructing them to delay preparing November benefits.

So at this point, we're weeks behind where state agencies and administrators typically are in the process of preparing those benefits for SNAP participants and putting those benefits on EBT cards. So even if the Trump administration complies with this court order, which is still TBD, we could be seeing days to weeks of delays in SNAP benefits for November.

John Yang:

Are there states that are going to use their own money to fund this while this is going on.

Grace Yarrow:

Yeah. Part of the difficult thing is that the federal government pays over $9 billion for SNAP benefits each month. So a lot of state budgets just don't have the money to make up for that. Some of them are tapping some emergency disaster funds or declaring states of emergency so that they can access some money.

But a lot of those states, we've seen a couple dozen try to do something like that, but they don't have. that much money compared to what they're used to getting from the federal government. And they're also not able to put that money to directly on EBT cards for SNAP participants the way they typically get benefits.

So they are donating money to food banks or trying to, you know, soften the blow on SNAP participants, but it's just not the same as getting benefits in a standard way.

John Yang:

EBT is electronic benefits transfer.

Grace Yarrow:

Yes.

John Yang:

They don't get a check, they get like a debit card.

Grace Yarrow:

Yes. Like a debit card, exactly.

John Yang:

Who qualifies for SNAP?

Grace Yarrow:

Yeah. So nearly 42 million low income Americans. A lot of them have children or are older adults or have disabilities. And so, I mean, it's across the country there are certain states that rely more on them. For example, New Mexico has the highest dependence on SNAP, about 21 percent. Louisiana and Oregon are also up there.

It varies by state, but between we've looked at between red states and blue states is pretty even. It'll impact every state across the country, some more than others. But there are so many people who are used to getting these benefits. And I mean this is the first time in history since the program was started that there's going to be a lapse in federal funding for it.

John Yang:

There's another nutrition program that may be in trouble because of this. WIC, Women's Infants and Children. Tell us about that.

Grace Yarrow:

Yeah, so WIC, a lot of folks who are on WIC are also on SNAP. They can co-enroll. So that is another program that at the start of the shutdown we saw a lot of concern about being able to fund it. The White House was able to use some unused tariff revenue to keep it going for a couple of weeks, but that was about $300 million. So compared to SNAP, it's a little bit less cash.

But there's not really a solution that the White House has presented or that the court has presented to making sure that WIC continues. So we could see a lot of families, especially mothers with young children who use WIC to get baby formula and just basic necessities and even health care. They will be impacted twice by both the WIC and the SNAP delays.

John Yang:

Has the WIC money program run out of cash? Is that, is that done?

Grace Yarrow:

It varies by state, but state agencies said around November 1st it's not as much of a funding cliff as SNAP where SNAP just fully ran out of federal funds starting today. But that 300 million or so that was issued to states around mid-October is starting to run out just around now.

John Yang:

Today is also the beginning of enrollment period for the ACA insurance program. Now this is an issue that's also central to this, to the shutdown. Explain that connection.

Grace Yarrow:

Yeah, so Democrats are really insisting on extending those subsidies and I think that's why this is such a big deal with the SNAP on top of the premiums going up so much. And so I think this is at the core of Democrats argument is that they want to prioritize low income Americans. And meanwhile Republicans are saying that Democrats are stretching this out and hurting folks even more by also delaying SNAP payments and WIC payments on top of the increased premiums.

John Yang:

Are there any other social safety net programs that are in danger of being threatened here?

Grace Yarrow:

I think those are the big ones. I mean SNAP has really dropped. Like I think that was a big topic of conversation when I was on the Hill last week. I think a lot of folks didn't even consider that was a possibility at the beginning of the shutdown because it's never happened before.

The Trump administration during the president's first term was able to find some money. It's different. It's a different situation than this go round. But they've been able to figure out how to cushion SNAP before and this is looking to be one of the longest, probably the longest shutdown ever.

So it's pretty unprecedented. And I think SNAP is at the top of the conversation as well as you mentioned, the Obamacare fight.

John Yang:

Grace Yarrow of POLITICO, thank you very much.

Grace Yarrow:

Thanks for having me.