SNAP Benefits Partially Restored: What It Means For Illinois

President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP payments to Illinois recipients in November, after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture froze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the weekend because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. It costs about $8 billion per month nationally.

NBC News reported the administration plans to use all $4.65 billion in contingency funds to cover about half of each eligible household's SNAP benefits this month. The administration said it would need at least $4 billion in additional government funds to provide full SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps.

It’s not clear how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly beneficiaries will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. 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. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the nation’s largest food program, said last month that benefits for November wouldn’t be paid out 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.

Illinois is among a group of states that is suing the Trump administration over the suspension of the program. Nearly 2 million Illinois residents receive SNAP benefits.

On Thursday, Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order directing $20 million in state funding to go to state food banks.

"The Trump Administration wants to let tens of millions of Americans go hungry, a failure in leadership and abdication of our responsibility as Americans to take care of each other," Pritzker said Thursday. "Illinois families, kids, seniors, and people with disabilities will now go without food benefits because President Trump wants to use food assistance as a political bargaining chip."

On Friday, two federal judges ordered that the Trump administration must pull from contingency funds to keep SNAP running amid the government shutdown.

"Now is not the time for political games. The Trump Administration must step up and follow the judge’s ruling to fund SNAP. Every delay they create will cause working families, children, and seniors to go hungry," Pritzker wrote on X on Friday.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul reacted to the rulings, days after he and 26 other attorneys general and governors filed their lawsuit against the Trump administration over suspending SNAP benefits.

The order "stated that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that USDA’s suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful," Raoul's office said in a news release. The lawsuit argues that suspending SNAP benefits is "contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act," and that the USDA does not have the authority to cease SNAP benefits because Congress had already appropriated funding for the program.

Raoul said the judges' ruling "acknowledges, once again, that the rule of law and separation of powers still matter," adding, "Nearly 2 million Illinoisans rely on SNAP benefits to access healthy food for themselves and their families. The Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to cut off access to this vital program is nothing short of cruel and shortsighted, and I will continue to stand with other attorneys general to protect our residents from bearing the brunt of this administration’s illegal policies."

The analysis of USDA Food and Nutrition Service data by the non-partisan research group that focuses on federal and state policies to reduce poverty and inequality also shows that 1,935,600 Illinois residents, that’s 15 percent of the state population (1 in 7), depend on benefits to keep food on the table.

According to the data, more than 60 percent of SNAP participants in Illinois are families with children, and 33 percent have family members who are elderly or disabled. In the fiscal year 2022, most Illinois SNAP participants have incomes below the poverty line, according to the data.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.