This story originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and politics..
Food banks in several states, including Idaho And Maineare preparing for an influx of visitors. IN South Carolinathe government's emergency fund will be tapped to meet demand. And in North DakotaThe state's only food bank has launched an emergency fundraising campaign.
As lawmakers in Congress extend almost record-breaking With the federal government shutdown possibly extending for another month, massive cuts to critical care threaten the nation's most vulnerable populations, including women, parents and postpartum children.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps or SNAP, will end on Saturday in early November. Additionally, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, does not have long-term funding as of November. (The White House allocated some reserve funding for WIC in October, but advocates warn it will run out within the next few weeks.)
The 60-year-old SNAP program provides nearly 42 million low-income Americans, including nearly 16 million children, with access to money to buy groceries. Funding is typically issued through debit cards, which are not scheduled to be loaded on November 1st (or throughout the month, as some states run the program on a staggered calendar).
“The fact that we're talking about so much money and so many families depending on it, and no benefits coming next month, is really going to be a crisis,” said Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut.
The WIC program, developed in the early 1970s, provides some money for food purchases but primarily offers resources aimed at helping low-income young parents raise healthy children. This includes prenatal care, nutrition education and breastfeeding support. This program is a lifeline serving 7 million people, including nearly half of all children born in the United States.
Cutting one or both programs would be unprecedented—Congress has never allowed funding to be cut off for these vulnerable populations, even during previous shutdowns. The ripple effect could include hungry families and pregnant and postpartum parents having fewer resources (including infant formula in some cases) to keep their children healthy.
Food banks—a charitable assistance system that distributes food to pantries and nutrition programs across the country and is funded by a variety of sources, including private donations—offer assistance when panic begins to spread among families. Many existing food pantry recipients are not eligible for SNAP because their income threshold, while potentially low, may not be low enough. This means resource depletion for more people.
“Food banks and food pantries will be a bridge during this time,” said Eric Hodel, the company’s CEO. Midwest Food Bankwhich distributes food to nonprofit organizations in 25 states and operates distribution facilities at two international agencies. “Sometimes we may have been able to build bridges with some people for a day or a week. If we have long delays in administering SNAP, I think at the food bank we are preparing for the fact that we may have to build bridges a little longer and further afield – so we continue to do what we do to the best of our ability.”
But it is expected that this will not be enough. Feeding America, an organization that provides a nationwide network of food banks, estimates that food pantries provide about one out of every nine meals provided by SNAP.
“The most difficult and heartbreaking situation for staff and volunteers is when pantries are empty and they have to turn people away – veterans, seniors, families with young children. However, with demand rising and the cost of food rising, this is already a harsh reality for many and, unless immediate action is taken, will become the reality for countless more people across the country,” said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America. in the statement.
This is a dynamic deployment in the background rising food prices. Schwartz added, “The charitable food system is designed to support families, but it is dwarfed by the amount of money available through SNAP.”
This will be especially true for the standalone WIC program, explained Nell Menefee-Libey, senior manager of public policy at National WIC Associationwhich advocates for WIC workers based throughout the country. WIC is the nation's largest breastfeeding support program—a resource that cannot be replenished by the food system. The program also provides specially formulated products to meet the specific nutritional needs of pregnant and postpartum parents, as well as children from infancy to age five. This would also be due to potentially inconsistent food offerings at food pantries.
And if a family uses infant formula, it may be the only source of nutrition for a small child. For the most part, food banks have historically not provided baby food, Menefee-Libey said.
“It's a pretty delicate supply chain, so trying to figure out what it would look like to get additional formula to food banks to support families in the event of a widespread disruption to the WIC program is incredibly difficult,” she said.
Proponents of SNAP benefits point out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers WIC and SNAP, has reserve funds—some estimates say $5 billion to $6 billion for SNAP alone. The agency says it cannot use those funds for the program. Nearly 60 percent of SNAP beneficiaries these are children and elderly people.
“Bottom line: the well has dried up,” the message says. on the US Department of Agriculture website.
The result: the well has dried up.” USDA
This claim has been disputed in court. On Tuesday, a coalition of 25 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its plans to cut access to the SNAP program.
“Funds are available to continue the SNAP program right now without any interruption,” Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch said during a news conference this week. “So this is a decision that the president makes on his own — on his own — to allow people to go hungry.”
While lawmakers in Washington continue to grapple with how to reopen the government, some are also discussing separate legislation that could continue to fund food assistance. The idea has bipartisan support, but it is unclear whether there will be enough political will to do anything within days.
In October, the USDA allocated $150 million in reserve funds for WIC, and then separate transfer of $300 million from tariff funds. Menefee-Libey said if there is no clarity soon, the consequences will include layoffs of WIC staff, which will impact how families can access resources.
“I think we are very fortunate that this program has broad bipartisan support, that the White House and USDA stepped in to provide significant support for the program during the shutdown,” she said. “But even with all the emergency measures that have been put in place, we can only make it through October. It's absolutely fair to say that some urgency is needed to ensure that we don't see people losing access to WIC benefits as early as November.”
Carolyn Vega is Deputy Director of Policy Analysis at Share our strengthnon-profit organization that works to solve the problems of hunger and poverty and monitors No Child Hungry Campaign which aims to eradicate child hunger.
Vega worries about the various groups most likely to be affected, including single-parent families and children who may come to school hungry. (Schools offer federal food assistance programs, including breakfast and lunch, which are not expected to be affected by the closure.)
“The fastest and best way to address the looming hunger problem is for the USDA to step in and provide the benefits that families are entitled to and count on,” Vega said.
The break comes after the Trump administration announced in September that it would stop tracking food insecurity in American households in an annual report, saying press release saying the work was redundant, expensive and politicized. Schwartz criticized the move and its broader implications amid business closures.
“This measure has been around for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been working in this area for quite a long time,” she said. “The fact that they just decided not to measure it is like they're trying to make it harder to actually document the harm that's happening.”
