"The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation's social safety net. Word in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food."
"Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the program, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions. The administration said it wasn't allowed to use a contingency fund with about $5 billion in it for the program, which reversed a USDA plan from before the shutdown that said money would be tapped to keep SNAP running."
Two federal judges ordered the administration to continue funding SNAP using contingency funds during the government shutdown. The USDA had planned to freeze SNAP payments, which serve about one in eight Americans and cost roughly $8 billion per month, prompting states and food banks to scramble and some states to use their own funds. Democratic attorneys general or governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia sued, arguing the administration must use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund and could access a separate $23 billion fund. A Rhode Island judge directed use of at least contingency funds and requested a Monday progress update, while a Massachusetts-based judge gave the administration until Monday to state whether benefits will be partially or fully funded. It remains unclear how quickly beneficiary debit cards can be reloaded after the rulings.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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