Admin: November SNAP Partially Funded  11/04 06:08

   President Donald Trump's administration said Monday that it will partially 
fund SNAP for November, after two judges issued rulings requiring the 
government to keep the nation's largest food aid program running.

   PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- President Donald Trump's administration said Monday 
that it will partially fund SNAP for November, after two judges issued rulings 
requiring the government to keep the nation's largest food aid program running.

   The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental 
Nutrition Assistance Program, had planned to freeze payments starting Nov. 1 
because it said it could no longer keep funding it during the federal 
government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major 
piece of the nation's social safety net. It costs more than $8 billion per 
month nationally. The government says an emergency fund it will use has $4.65 
billion -- enough to cover about half the normal benefits.

   Exhausting the fund potentially sets the stage for a similar situation in 
December if the shutdown isn't resolved by then.

   It's not clear exactly how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly 
they will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. 
November payments have already been delayed for millions of people.

   "The Trump Administration has the means to fund this program in full, and 
their decision not to will leave millions of Americans hungry and waiting even 
longer for relief as government takes the additional steps needed to partially 
fund this program," Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who led 
a coalition of Democratic state officials in one of the lawsuits that forced 
the funding, said in a statement.

   The administration also provided an infusion to the Special Supplemental 
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which helps low-income 
mothers buy nutritious staples. WIC received an additional $450 million in 
funding, according to a senior administration official who spoke Monday on 
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision 
publicly. POLITICO first reported on the funding Monday afternoon.

   Last month, some states warned they only had enough money to operate their 
WIC programs until mid-November. The administration last month reallocated $300 
million in unspent tariff revenue to keep the program running.

   How will SNAP beneficiaries manage?

   People who receive the benefits are trying to figure out how to stretch 
their grocery money further.

   Corina Betancourt, who lives in Glendale, Arizona, already uses a food bank 
sometimes to get groceries for herself and her three kids, ages 8 through 11. 
With her SNAP benefits reduced and delayed, she's expecting to use the food 
bank more and find ways to stretch what she has further.

   She is worried that there won't be enough for her children to eat with about 
$400 this month instead of around $800. "We always make things work somehow, 
some way," she said.

   In Camden, New Jersey, Jamal Brown, who is paralyzed after a series of 
strokes and on a fixed income, said family members asked him for a list of 
groceries he needs so they can stock him up.

   But not everyone has that help.

   "How did you expect to live a healthy life if you're not eating the right 
stuff?" he asked. "If you don't have the access to the food stamps, you're 
going to go to the cheapest thing that you can afford."

   Details on how payments will roll out are still to come

   The administration said it would provide details to states Monday on 
calculating the per-household partial benefit. The process of loading the SNAP 
cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and 
vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. But the USDA warned in a 
court filing that it could take weeks or even months for states to make all the 
system changes to send out reduced benefits. The average monthly benefit is 
usually about $190 per person.

   California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference that it 
would take his state about a week to load benefit cards once the funding is 
made available.

   "These are folks who are hungry, and every day matters," Bonta said.

   The USDA said last month that benefits for November wouldn't be paid due to 
the federal government shutdown. That set off a scramble by food banks, state 
governments and the nearly 42 million Americans who receive the aid to find 
ways to ensure access to groceries.

   The liberal group Democracy Forward, which represented plaintiffs in one of 
the lawsuits, said it was considering legal options to force full SNAP funding.

   Other high-profile Democrats are calling for the government to do that on 
its own.

   "USDA has the authority to fully fund SNAP and needs to do so immediately. 
Anything else is unacceptable," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on 
social media.

   State governments step in

   Most states have boosted aid to food banks, and some are setting up systems 
to reload benefit cards with state taxpayer dollars. The threat of a delay also 
spurred lawsuits.

   Federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled separately but 
similarly Friday, telling the government in response to lawsuits filed by 
Democratic state officials, cities and nonprofits that it was required to use 
one emergency fund to pay for the program, at least in part. They gave the 
government the option to use additional money to fully fund the program and a 
deadline of Monday to decide.

   Patrick Penn, Deputy Under Secretary Food Nutrition and Consumer Services 
for USDA, said in a court filing Monday that the department chose not to tap 
other emergency funds to ensure there's not a gap in child nutrition programs 
for the rest of this fiscal year, which runs through September 2026.

   Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force people to 
choose between buying groceries and paying other bills. The majority of states 
have announced more or expedited funding for food banks or novel ways to load 
at least some benefits onto the SNAP debit cards.

   New Mexico and Rhode Island officials said Monday that some SNAP 
beneficiaries received funds over the weekend from their emergency programs. 
Officials in Delaware are telling recipients that their benefits won't be 
available until at least Nov. 7.

   To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a household's net income after certain expenses 
can't exceed the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that's about 
$32,000 per year.