The administration of President Donald Trump said Monday it will partially fund SNAP/CalFresh in November as a result of court rulings requiring the government to keep the federal food assistance program running.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, had planned to freeze payments starting Nov. 1 due to the federal government shutdown.
On Friday, two federal judges separately told the USDA that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to maintain food assistance to needy families despite the shutdown — and gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so. The program serves about one in eight Americans.
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 administration said it would provide details to states on Monday on calculating the per-household partial benefit. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.
California and other states have boosted aid to food banks, and some are setting up systems to reload benefit cards with state taxpayer dollars. Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that California, along with over 20 other states, is suing the Trump administration over the administration’s alleged unlawful refusal to fund SNAP benefits due to the nearly month-long federal government shutdown.
According to the lawsuit, under Trump, the USDA planned to “needlessly suspend November SNAP benefits,” causing 5.5 million Californians to lose access to $1.1 billion in food assistance.
The court orders Friday left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive, leaving nearly 1.5 million people in Los Angeles County and more than 310,000 in Orange County without CalFresh benefits for an unknown length of time.
CalFresh is the California version of the federal food assistance program also known as SNAP, commonly referred to as EBT or food stamps. The program is entirely federally funded, but is managed by states and administered by counties.
To fill the gap, Los Angeles County has partnered with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to host grocery giveaways for people who might be struggling to put food on the table.
Democrats and Republicans blame each other for the government shutdown, with Democrats refusing to vote on a budget bill without an extension of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to keep health care premiums down. But Republicans refuse to budge on the matter, saying the health care issue can be debated later since the health care subsidies are in place until the end of the year.