Trump Administration To Partially Pay SNAP Benefits: What It Means For MA

MASSACHUSETTS — President Donald Trump's administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP payments to Massachusetts 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.

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• MA SNAP Benefits Won't Go Out In November, Officials Confirm
• SNAP Benefits In Jeopardy In MA Due To Government Shutdown, New Fed Rules
• MA Attorney General Campbell Sues Trump Administration For SNAP Funding Freeze

Gov. Maura Healey last week called on the Trump Administration to fully fund SNAP benefits as she committed $4 million in state resources to help food banks make up some of the shortfall. She said the state could not shoulder the entire cost of SNAP benefits for its residents.

"The Trump Administration just admitted what we have known all along — this funding
was available this entire time and the president could have been using it to prevent American families from going hungry," Healey said. "Families should never have been put through this, and it shouldn't have taken a court order to force President Trump to feed American families like every president before him.

"The Trump Administration is now committing to using contingency funding to at least partially cover SNAP benefits. We are awaiting clarity on how much and when those benefits will be made available. But the president should not stop there. President Trump should commit to fully funding SNAP benefits and make these full benefits available as soon as possible."

Healey said on Monday that the Trump Administration still has not informed states about how much SNAP funding they will get and when it will be made available.

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.

Last week, Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell joined a group of 26 states in suing the Trump administration, claiming the USDA unlawfully suspended SNAP benefits during the ongoing government shutdown, a lawsuit that was the basis of a Massachusetts court ruling ordering that the benefits be paid.

"Never in the history of the SNAP program – including during government shutdowns — has SNAP funding ever been suspended or only partially funded," Campbell said. "While some funding is better than no funding, the federal government has made it clear that they are only willing to do the bare minimum to help our residents, and only after they were required to do so by our lawsuit and the courts.

"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 the government takes the additional steps needed to partially fund this program."

The Associated Press contributed reporting.