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On Nov. 1, the largest food assistance program in the country is set to stop providing benefits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps”) will run out of funding this Saturday as a result of the ongoing government shutdown.
For the first time in the program’s history, SNAP will fail to provide support to the 42 million people who depend on this critical assistance, causing a dramatic spike in hunger within one of the world’s wealthiest nations.
In addition to SNAP, several other important food aid programs are set to shut down this weekend. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program will join SNAP in ceasing to provide benefits to 7 million mothers and children. Head Start, an early education program that feeds 800,000 children every day, is also set to shut down this Saturday unless funding is provided. All combined, the shuttering of these three programs would be one of the largest one-time cuts to support for the hungry in all of human history.
Tell Congress: End the government shutdown and protect our health care!
Allowing SNAP benefits to end on Nov. 1 is a choice that the Trump administration is making. While the program’s temporary closure is a result of the government shutdown, the benefit cuts could be avoided without even ending the shutdown. SNAP has a contingency fund for emergency situations just like this, and it currently has enough funding to extend SNAP benefits for at least the first two-thirds of November.
But the Trump administration falsely claims that they cannot access these funds, even though they are arguably legally required to. The White House has also so far refused to use their transfer authority to cover SNAP’s shortfall with excess funds from other nutrition programs.
The Trump administration’s decision to allow the end of SNAP benefits and other food aid programs is a political choice meant to create pressure on the president’s opponents in Congress. But it will have devastating effects on the 1 in 8 Americans who benefit from the program. Half of the nation’s 50 states are now suing the White House in a bid to force the administration to use the emergency funds.
The SNAP program is something of a modern miracle: it feeds tens of millions of people, reduces poverty and inequality, prevents crime, and improves health (thus lowering health care costs). Because people spend SNAP benefits at local grocery stores and other retail outlets, SNAP also boosts economic growth and helps to stabilize the economy during recessions. When low-income people receive SNAP benefits, the stability makes it easier for them to both keep their jobs and to start new businesses. When poor families have access to SNAP benefits, their children do better in school and are more successful later in life.
Based solely on the merits of these programs, the United States should dramatically increase spending on SNAP, WIC, and other related food aid programs. Yet recent policies have only enacted cuts. The massive reconciliation bill passed by Congress earlier this year will reduce funding for nutrition programs by $187 billion over the next decade. The Trump administration also cut funding for food banks and farm-to-school programs and eliminated the survey collecting data on food insecurity, meaning that we will be unable to measure just how bad hunger gets in the coming years.
The “right to food is a universal human right,” one that been recognized by the United Nations. Both within the U.S. and around the world, there is more than enough food available to completely eradicate hunger; it’s just matter of distributing it properly. Allowing food aid to expire for 1 in 8 people in this country represents a moral failing that is made all the more contemptible by how easily it could be avoided by those in power. It is within our power to rectify this injustice and ensure that everyone has their basic needs met.
There are two ways out of this funding problem. The most immediate solution is for President Trump to stop playing politics with the lives of 42 million people and guarantee the funding of SNAP and other nutrition programs using the money that they already have available. This, however, is a temporary fix, and the problem is likely to reemerge so long as the government remains shutdown.
The more comprehensive solution to this problem is to end the government shutdown. Congress can easily reopen the government in a way that not only restores SNAP funding, but also avoids another looming deadline that will cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket. It’s important to demand that Congress end the shutdown while protecting both our health care and our nutrition programs.
Tell Congress: End the government shutdown and protect our health care!
In the meanwhile, it will be important for all of us to support one another. Food banks and other charities do not have the resources to meet everyone’s needs if SNAP and WIC benefits are cut off, and they will likely face enormous strain so long as the benefit shutdown continues. We must help to take care of each other, even when the politicians won’t.
Here are some resources to share:
- Find a food bank near you using this tool from Feeding America.
- Find other local charities providing food at Foodfinder.us.
- A guide to creating a mutual aid network in your community.
An end to hunger in this country and around the world is possible within our lifetimes, but it will take all of us working together to achieve it.
