The challenges Ligon faces every day were intensified by the government shutdown, which ended last week after a record-breaking 43 days. She and her family participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food assistance to nearly 42 million low-income Americans. When she heard the news that the Trump administration would not pay out full SNAP benefits for the month of November, Ligon worried how she would keep her family fed.
Ligon knew she was supposed to receive her SNAP benefits on November 11, meaning that she had some time to plan for the possibility of not getting any assistance. Like millions of Americans, Ligon turned to the charitable sector—but visiting a food pantry simply cannot replace the assistance she receives from SNAP. Ligon’s disability makes it difficult for her to stand for long periods to wait in line. But even after she got to the front of the line, she could not take some of the donated food items because of her son’s severe allergies.
As Washington state was one of the states to pay out full benefits, Ligon was able to receive her SNAP payments on November 11—but only after enduring a period of significant uncertainty the previous week. SNAP benefits are loaded onto a card, which can then be used to purchase food products. On November 6, Ligon’s future benefits registered as “pending,” so she felt comfortable to go to the grocery store and use the rest of her benefits, knowing that she would have more soon.
“There’s just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknown, which was very stressful, because I had gone grocery shopping once I had seen that those benefits were pending, and I felt secure. And then I felt like my security was kind of ripped from me again,” continued Ligon. “I still made smart decisions in the groceries that I purchased, but it’s not enough. Like, no matter how you cut it, it’s not enough.”
This November marked the first time that SNAP benefits have not been distributed during a shutdown. During the second-longest government shutdown, which spanned 35 days from the end of December 2018 through January 2019, the first Trump administration took deliberate steps to ensure SNAP benefits would not lapse. The second Trump administration appears to have different priorities.
“The Trump administration itself went from understanding that continuing SNAP is part of the responsibilities of governing, to being quite hostile to continuing SNAP, and using this as an excuse to attack the program,” said David Super, professor of law and economics at Georgetown Law School.
“We cut off food assistance to a lot of people with their limited funds, and many of them had to spend their rent money or their utility money buying food for their families, and they can’t pay that back with SNAP,” Super said. “It is certainly possible that there will be long-term disruptions in how people’s budgets are managed, or even people going to extreme measures to avoid getting evicted or getting their utilities shut off because they diverted the money this month.”
“There are times when I probably won’t eat at all, just to make sure they’ve got [food],” said Patman.
“I still have to pay bills, and I still have to use money for transportation to get them back and forth to school and things like that. So for us to not be able to have it anymore, it will really be a hard thing,” Patman said in an interview at the end of October.
When SNAP participants have access to full benefits again, they will be able to stock up on items they need. This could help the small grocers who felt the impact of the disruption to SNAP. The National Grocers Association warned earlier in November that the lapse in funding could lead to “reduced employee hours, perishable food losses, and declining sales for many community grocers across our nation.”
Congress also passed legislation over the summer that could result in millions losing their benefits across the country. States were instructed to begin implementing a provision to tighten work requirements in November, and the shutdown added to the logistical challenges for state governments.
Another provision of the law would force states to shoulder some of the cost of SNAP benefits depending on their error rate—the percentage of over- or underpayments in a state—which may lead them to either spend less on SNAP or further restrict benefits in future years. If state officials have been distracted with handling the shutdown, this could lead to more errors once SNAP is fully up and running. Moreover, the continuing resolution that funds the government has authorized SNAP spending through next year, but that may just mean the next political fight over the program has been punted until 2026.
Still, SNAP is incredibly important to Ligon’s family, and she worries about the impact of future cuts even after the government is reopened and benefits are more secure. The disruption of the shutdown has made her less confident about her family’s future.
“Things that I couldn’t imagine happening are happening, and things that they say could never happen, happened,” said Ligon.
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