Democratic states sue to force SNAP payments during shutdown

With the nation’s primary anti-hunger program on the verge of running out of money, a group of 23 Democratic attorneys general, including Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, sued the Agriculture Department on Tuesday to force it to make billions of dollars in contingency funds available to help feed the most vulnerable individuals and families.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program commonly known as food stamps, needs $9.2 billion to pay benefits in November. The Trump administration has said there’s no money for next month because of the government shutdown, which started Oct. 1 and doesn’t appear close to ending.

USDA has $5.5 billion on hand in contingency funds for the program, enough to cover more than half the month’s costs, but it cannot pay them, a senior administration official told The Washington Post on Monday.

That money is meant to be held in case of natural disasters or other catastrophes, not used to cover for a lapse in government funding, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

But the state attorneys general argue in their lawsuit that withholding the contingency funds violates federal spending laws and that the administration should be required to disburse the money, even if it covers only partial payments for the month.

Around 42 million people rely on SNAP benefits each month; the average benefit is $332 per household, according to federal data.

“At a time of increased costs for families, the Trump administration is making a deliberate, illegal and cruel decision to cut off access to food for nearly 2 million Illinoisans,” Raoul said. “I will continue to stand with other attorneys general against the president’s unlawful actions that threaten the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

“Millions of Americans are about to go hungry because the federal government has chosen to withhold food assistance it is legally obligated to provide,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “There is no excuse for this administration to abandon families who rely on SNAP, or food stamps, as a lifeline. The federal government must do its job to protect families.”

The federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits, meaning states do not have a budget to fund the mass-scale program, though states do implement the payments. If benefits lapse Saturday, it would mark the first time in the program’s 60-year history where the federal government fails to make the food-assistance payments because of a pause in appropriations.

In a memo to states sent Friday, USDA officials argued that “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.”

“It has never been used to complement benefits,” the senior administration official said. “We’ve never had a lapse in appropriations like this. It’s something that has not been tested, but precedent is for times of disaster.”

During previous shutdowns, USDA said states could use the contingency fund to pay for SNAP, including during the longest-ever closure, which ran from December 2018 into January 2019 in the first Trump administration. At that time, the administration told states through USDA memos that they could access the funds to pay for SNAP.

A USDA spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of agency policy, said Democrats were responsible for the looming crisis.

“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”

WIC payments, which go to low-income families and children under 5, are continuing despite the shutdown, funded by tariff revenue under a long-standing provision in the law.

Even though USDA has said it will not refund states for sending food-assistance payments to residents if SNAP funding is halted, some states have made plans to keep funds flowing regardless. In New York, for example, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) allocated $30 million for food aid and $11 million for food banks and pantries as a stopgap effort. But the funds don’t cover even a week of what the state typically distributes in monthly SNAP benefits — which regularly total about $650 million.

Other governors, like California’s Gavin Newsom (D), have said they will help their states’ food banks as they struggle with extra demand caused by the missing payments.

On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) declared a state of emergency over the end of SNAP benefits and said the state will use its own surplus funds to make food stamp payments through November through a program called Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance. The payments will load onto SNAP recipients’ existing debit cards, known as EBT cards. If the shutdown drags past November, it is unclear what would happen, Youngkin said. Other states, however, have not yet presented a stopgap plan.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have raised the alarm over SNAP funding cuts. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced legislation meant to keep SNAP funded next month. The bill is co-sponsored by 10 other Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Peter Welch (Vermont). In an X post announcing the bill, Hawley blamed Democrats for the potential lapse in funding, saying it could happen because they “REFUSE to fund the government.”

Speaking to reporters this week, Hawley said the “best thing would be to reopen the government.”

“That would solve all these problems. That’s what we should do,” Hawley said. “But if my Democrat colleagues won’t agree on that and we can’t come to a meeting of the minds, I sure don’t want to see 42 million Americans not eat.”

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has not committed to bringing Hawley’s bill or other legislation to ameliorate the impact of the shutdown — including bills to pay the military and air traffic controllers — to the floor for a vote. Instead, Republicans will continue to press Democrats to vote for a funding bill that would reopen the entire federal government.

“Most people recognize that the way to get out of this mess is to vote to open up the government,” Thune told reporters Tuesday.

But Democrats blame Republicans and President Donald Trump for the uncertainty, accusing them of holding food stamps hostage. Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who represents New Mexico, the state with the highest SNAP participation rate, said that the shutdown has not stopped Trump from sending tens of billions of dollars to “his political allies in Argentina,” or $300 million to build the White House ballroom.

“But when it comes to feeding our fellow Americans, his administration is choosing to play politics,” Luján said in a statement. “The administration must release the available SNAP funds immediately to ensure millions of Americans don’t go hungry.”

The administration has also moved money around to cover other spending during the shutdown, including pay for military personnel and law enforcement agents in the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Advocates and experts have voiced skepticism over the legality of the USDA memo blocking states from accessing the contingency funds.

“This is unprecedented,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the interim SNAP director at the Food Research and Action Center, arguing that Congress has not withdrawn the funds and that until those are repealed, the agency can’t block states from accessing them.

The memo, she said, “is not a policy memo. It looks more like a political memo.”

“The [Congress] archive still says that they could use contingency funding in order to ensure that SNAP benefits are not delayed,” she said.

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• Theodoric Meyer and Katie Shepherd contributed.