Almost five million Americans may not receive any Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in November, under new rules issued by the Agriculture Department on Tuesday.
The Trump administration had previously announced it was halting all SNAP payments in November, blaming the government shutdown. Officials also declined to use the government’s contingency fund to cover the federal food assistance during the shortfall – a decision overturned last week by two federal judges who ruled the government must issue either partial or full SNAP benefits.
What To Know
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump suggested he would violate the court orders by halting payments until the shutdown was over. The White House quickly walked that back, saying that they were complying with the order.
Within a few hours of Trump’s comments, the Agriculture Department issued new guidance for how to calculate SNAP, and ordered states to recalculate benefits for current recipients.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning group, told the New York Times that the new policy could cut average benefits by about 61 percent this month, and leave some recipients with nothing at all.
“Some households are not going to get any benefits under this,” said Dottie Rosenbaum, who oversees SNAP research for the group.
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