For Families on the Brink, Losing SNAP Benefits Has Led to Devastating Choices

Economy

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November 10, 2025

With the government shutdown now the longest in history, the neediest Americans are forgoing food, medical care, and other essentials to survive.

People wait in line at a food bank in Miami, Florida, on the eve of the government shutdown.

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

Ordinarily, Sara Stone receives $280 a month in food stamp benefits for herself, her fiancé, and her three children. It’s never enough to buy all their food, but it helps her pay for meat and pantry staples, food “we would not otherwise be able to afford,” she said.

But when she called the number on the back of her food stamps card to find out her account balance in early November, a recording told her that, due to the government shutdown that began on October 1, funds were not being released. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, ran out of federal funding on November 1, and despite the fact that the law requires the Trump administration to fully fund benefits—and that there is money to do so both in a contingency fund Congress created and in other Department of Agriculture accounts—President Trump has refused to do so. Two courts ordered the administration to fund benefits, but Trump decided not to pay out full benefits and appealed the decision up to the Supreme Court. The administration also sent a memo to states ordering them not to pay out full benefits and to claw back any that had been sent out. On Monday, an appeals court denied the administration’s request of a stay, and the administration again appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court in its quest to avoid paying out full SNAP benefits.

The lapse in SNAP has left Stone with barely any money to cover her family’s basic needs. Despite her fiancé’s working a full-time job and her part-time work as a home health aide for her autistic 7-year-old son, their income doesn’t stretch very far. She estimates that between the rent on their Pennsylvania home, car payment, phone, Internet, water, trash collection, and sewer bills, she owes about $3,000 for the month of November. “After everything is paid, we’re left with $123,” she said. That money must cover pet food, gas, hygiene products, and any other needs—and, now, food. “What are you really supposed to do?” she said. When we spoke on November 3, she had just gotten shutoff notices from her electricity and water companies. Both offered her payment plans, but even those delayed payments will hit in a few weeks. She’s already borrowed money from family members that she hasn’t paid back—and doesn’t know whether they’ll lend her more.

Many SNAP recipients also fill gaps with food banks even when the program is running normally, and there’s one near Stone’s home, but it’s challenging to make use of. Her autistic son will only eat certain foods, many of them not the shelf-stable staples that food banks dole out. When she went there recently, she got two boxes of pasta, two jars of sauce, 25 canned goods, five small cups of cereal, and four cans of meat she gave away because her family won’t eat them. The pasta will last her only two weeks, she said. Her children love fresh fruits and vegetables, but Stone has had to tell them that they’re going to have to eat things like ramen noodles and canned vegetables for a while. “I don’t think they fully comprehend what’s going on,” she said. All she had for lunch on a recent weekend day was cut-up lunch meat on some crackers because they haven’t been able to buy bread. The day we spoke, she was planning to serve pasta without vegetables or meat for dinner.

At this time of year, expenses mount. Stone’s 5-year-old daughter’s birthday is in late November, and she has asked for a scooter or Barbies. “We’re having to buy food right now, so we can’t even get her a birthday gift,” Stone said. She posted her daughter’s wish list on social media and asked friends and family to buy things off of it. “I said, ‘I don’t care what you get, as long as she has something to open,’” she said.

Then there’s Thanksgiving. Turkey prices are very high—the cheapest Stone could find at Walmart was $23. Christmas comes not far behind, and Stone is already trying to sock away money from extra home health aide shifts to be able to buy her children presents.

Current Issue

With the shutdown now the longest in history, government programs that serve the neediest are starting to run out of funds, including SNAP, Head Start, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which defrays the cost of energy bills and heating for low-income families. Many Americans rely on a number of these programs at once, depriving them of support while food prices increase and the holiday season approaches. With a group of Democrats now breaking from the party to vote for funding without securing the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies that will drive premiums thousands of dollars higher for millions of people, the government might soon reopen. Even if it does, however, it will still take weeks or longer for benefits to begin flowing, a process made slower by the deep personnel cuts the Trump administration has already made. The suffering that families have had to endure during the shutdown will be difficult for them to recover from.

One silver lining for Stone is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which provides eligible mothers and their young children money to buy healthy foods. Although the Trump administration has refused to tap USDA funds to send out SNAP benefits, it has twice used the same money in child nutrition programs to fund WIC during the shutdown. The National WIC Association said the latest infusion would normally be enough for three weeks, but with SNAP and other programs running out it could be depleted more quickly. Through WIC, Stone gets about $200 a month to buy eggs, milk, fruit, and vegetables.

Stone’s daughter attends a Head Start program, which has helped improve her speech, at first severely delayed. But Head Start programs can’t hold any federal funding in reserves, and those whose grants were due November 1 didn’t receive them, forcing 25 programs across the country to either partially or completely shut their doors.

The Head Start center Stone’s 5-year-old attends isn’t among those, but if the shutdown lasts through December, hers will close, too. That would limit Stone’s ability to take on extra clients to make more money. Worse, it’ll mean her daughter loses free breakfast and lunch during the week, putting even more strain on the family’s budget.

Stone and her fiancé have been trying to fill the gaps by working more hours. Stone has picked up extra shifts as a home health aide for other people’s children on the weekends, sacrificing family time to earn some extra money. Her fiancé has applied to local pizza places to be a delivery driver, which would require him to go to work so early and come home so late he wouldn’t get to see the children. But none have called him back. “A lot of people don’t understand that the people who are getting assistance are already working multiple jobs,” Stone said.

Tamaris King, a single mother of three sons, also living in Pennsylvania, relies on LIHEAP to help with her electric bill year round and particularly with her heat in the winter. Federal funding for the program is normally released at the beginning of November, but it’s on hold with the government shut down, likely a first for the program. States that would normally open applications for the winter season have kept them closed. In October, King was told that the state won’t be processing applications during the shutdown, possibly for the next couple of months. “It’s devastating,” she said. It’s already cold where she lives and she’s had to turn on the heat. She’s going to have to put off paying her utility bills as long as she can. Even when the government reopens, households wouldn’t get the assistance until December. The administration also fired all of the federal workers who administered LIHEAP.

Normally, King also receives $997 a month in SNAP benefits, which is usually enough to feed her whole family. But when we spoke on November 6, she had just $1.87 in her SNAP account, and when she called to inquire about her balance, she got an automated recording telling her the state doesn’t know if and when benefits will be released. She plans to frequent two nearby food pantries, but that comes with its own costs: She has to take an Uber there and has heard lines are stretching to a 20- or 30-minute wait. She thinks soon she’ll have to stop eating meat to save money. If she doesn’t get SNAP benefits this month, it will also make for a difficult Thanksgiving. “We’re not even going to be able to celebrate that or gather together to celebrate with family,” she said.

She worries about the impact losing these benefits will have on her children. “If I can’t fund feeding them and keeping them warm, how can they grow and be productive?” she said. King decided to stop working and start homeschooling her two youngest children this year—two of her children have died, and the fear of sending her living children to school amid so many school shootings terrifies her. “My nerves would be through the roof,” she said. “It would just put me in discomfort.” But the interruption in benefits is making her reconsider working outside the home. Even if she made that decision, it would be hard to work a paid job given that she doesn’t currently own a car.

“I’m just trying to stay afloat and stay mentally, physically, and emotionally together during this shutdown,” she said. It’s overwhelming, she said, figuring out how to go without food and utility benefits at the same time. “I don’t know how stable I’m going to be for the next 30 days.” She noted that she was an essential worker during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic. “After the hard work I’ve put in for my government, I can’t see how they could turn their backs on us.”

Nicollete Hill, a single mother of a 5-year-old daughter in Minnesota, has not just lost food stamps but also cash assistance from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. She attends school full-time, studying to get a bachelor’s degree in cyber defense, and can only work part-time doing dog walking and sitting. Benefits from SNAP and TANF have let her focus on her education for the last four years, allowing her to get a high school diploma and become the first in her family to earn an associate’s degree.

Normally, the approximately $400 she receives each month from SNAP lasts her until the third week; then she goes to a food bank. But this month she checked her account and there were no pending benefits. When we spoke on November 4, she had $40 in her account and was at Costco, buying a 50-pound bag of flour so she could make bread over the next month. When she went to a food bank in October, she got just a week’s worth of groceries after spending two and a half hours waiting in line. She’s heard lines have now gotten even longer. “There is definitely a massive concern and stressor that is put on a mother when it comes to not knowing when that next meal is going to come,” she said. “It is extremely stressful to be in a position of not being able to feed your child.”

The day before we spoke, she had received a letter telling her that her TANF benefits had also been canceled. The $600 she gets monthly helps her cover her portion of her subsidized rent in housing owned by the antipoverty nonprofit Jeremiah Program, her utilities, and her phone bill. She had reapplied to TANF a few weeks earlier, submitting her paperwork on time, but she knows that there are very few federal employees left to process it. The Trump administration has tried to fire thousands of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees TANF, and then tried to fire more in the shutdown (both have been challenged in court). Over 40 percent of the agency’s workforce is furloughed during the shutdown. Hill doesn’t expect to be able to sort out the paperwork error and get her benefits back for at least two months.

In the meantime, Hill is “just counting pennies” and putting expenses on credit cards—which she fears could eventually drive down her credit score if she can’t pay the bills off. Her WiFi and cell phone have both been shut off. “With the holidays coming it’s definitely very scary,” she said. She doesn’t know what she’ll be able to get her daughter for Christmas; she may have to turn to the few gift cards she’s stashed away to get presents. “I’ve cried a few times just trying to think of how to get through all of this.” She’s been applying for full-time jobs for months, sending out hundreds of applications despite knowing it would mean having to pause her education, but has only gotten a few callbacks. “It’s not like I’m sitting at home watching TV all day,” she noted. “I’m going to school, I’m working part-time, I’m doing all of the things that I need to do, and I’m still being failed by the system.”

“It’s definitely disheartening to be in this position and feel that no one is listening,” she said. “It makes me lose faith in society.”

Ashleigh Ligon usually gets about $1,200 a month in food stamp benefits. It doesn’t stretch very far between her, her husband, and her five children: her adult son, who has developmental delays, 10-year-old twins, a 7-year-old, and 3-year-old twins. Her husband was hurt on the job and still can’t work but hasn’t yet been able to get on disability; Ligon has physical disabilities and gets benefits, plus works part-time as a doula and lactation consultant. Ligon’s 7-year-old son also has a long list of severe food allergies—eggs, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, fish, onion, garlic, and anything from a can—so she mostly serves her family fresh meat, produce, and grains. She tries to feed her children healthy food, but that costs more. Her son’s allergies mean she can’t make much use of food banks.

Now her SNAP account shows no pending benefits. She hasn’t received any communication from her state, Washington, about whether or when she can expect to receive them. “I am going to have to make impossible decisions,” she said. She’s started feeding her family more starches and fewer of the fruits and vegetables they love. The day before we spoke in early November, she had to tell her children the apples they wanted to eat as a snack were reserved for dinner. When her children asked for seconds of meat at dinner, she had to offer them rice instead. “It just doesn’t stretch,” she said. She’s planning to start feeding her kids before herself to make sure they get fed and to eat less herself, even though eating well keeps her gastrointestinal conditions at bay.

This is the first time she’s ever had to deny her kids food. “I’ve never had my kids feel hungry. I’ve always been able to give them what they wanted even when things were tight,” she said.

The loss in funds will lead to other cuts. Her 10- and 7-year-olds are avid athletes, playing different sports year around, which “brings them joy and so much fulfillment,” she said. Although they have scholarships to cover some of the cost, Ligon thinks she’ll have to tell them they will need to skip the next season, the first time she’s had to pull back on such extracurriculars. “I think it will be incredibly hard,” she said.

The only other way Ligon can make cuts is to absorb them herself. She plans to take fewer medications than she’s prescribed and skip some of the medical appointments she would normally go to, even though the coming cold tends to trigger her autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. “That looks like me being in pain, frankly,” she said. She expects to be more nauseated and fatigued.

Her youngest children aren’t spared from the shutdown’s reach. The 3-year-old twins just aged out of Early Head Start, and while Ligon had hoped to enroll them in a Head Start program to get them ready for kindergarten, she hasn’t done so yet. Partly, it’s because it’s been challenging to find one that’s close enough and offers a full-day spot. But there are also programs closing around her because they haven’t gotten federal funding. The instability has made her wary of enrolling. “I just don’t know what to expect from day to day or week to week,” she said. “The unknown makes it tricky to make those decisions and feel confident in those decisions.”

“This is not just an inconvenience. This is a crisis,” she said. “Food shouldn’t be a privilege.”