\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Stacy Smith, a government worker, showed up to work last Monday \u2013 the first working day after food benefits lapsed, amid the ongoing federal shutdown \u2013 she found a long line outside her office door. Elderly and disabled individuals desperately wanted answers.<\/p>\n Some had gone to buy groceries, not realizing that their usual benefits were unavailable.<\/p>\n They quickly discovered that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) payments had been paused, after the Trump administration said it would not pay benefits because of the shutdown \u2013 crushing the largest anti-hunger program in the US.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a client that came in and said they were afraid they were going to have to start eating cat food again, because without Snap benefits, that\u2019s all they can afford, because they\u2019re on a fixed income,\u201d said Smith, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2882, who works as an eligibility technician for assistance programs including Snap in Providence, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are the things that I leave my job, and I go home, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m thinking about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nearly 42 million Americans rely on Snap. With benefits paused for the first time in the program\u2019s history, workers who provide assistance to Snap recipients expressed stark fears over how the move will affect low-income families and individuals. Across the country, food banks have been scrambling to keep up with surges in demand.<\/p>\n Following two court rulings, the Trump administration said it would only provide partial funding to Snap. Funding for the program lapsed on 1 November.<\/p>\n Snap payments continue to be contested in the courts. On Friday, the Trump administration appealed to the supreme court against a lower court\u2019s order compelling it to make the full aid payments. Its appeal was granted, temporarily, in an emergency ruling.<\/p>\n A Boston-based federal appeals court late on Sunday then ruled the benefits must be paid for November. But the Trump administration was expected to appeal the ruling, which was not expected to have immediate effect after the supreme court ruling, leaving the current status of the Snap program itself uncertain.<\/p>\n As the Trump administration fights against funding Snap, Smith said low-income families were scared. With the holidays approaching and schools due to close, breakfast and lunch meals provided during term time will not be available for their children.<\/p>\n <\/span>Residents wait in line at Curley\u2019s House food bank in Miami, Florida. <\/span> Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cClients are coming in. They want to know when this is going to end. And we don\u2019t have an answer for them,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to look someone in the face who\u2019s telling you they can\u2019t feed their family, and be able to try to guide them to other avenues to try to get some food for their household. We have community food banks, and we have food pantries, and they\u2019re they\u2019re already maxed out.\u201d<\/p>\n Snap is funded by the federal government, but administered by state and local governments, already facing cuts by the Trump administration. \u201cThis is more chaos for states and their ability to manage all these other big program issues that they have, and they\u2019re throwing all their resources in,\u201d said a former USDA food and nutrition service employee, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, as they currently work for federal contractors. \u201cThere\u2019s a real commitment by the states to get these benefits out there. This is a lifeline for the 42 million people that get the program. I see that commitment from them, but this really is unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n As the government shutdown drags on, Snap recipients have been reaching out to state offices in desperation for answers and relief.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point we have no more information, really, than they have in the news currently,\u201d said Misha Dancing Waters, a member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 720, who also works as an economic support specialist since the last nine years in Dane county, Wisconsin. \u201cFor Wisconsin, we haven\u2019t even gotten partial Snap funding. We haven\u2019t gotten anything so far.<\/p>\n <\/span>People wait in line to pick up food at a pop-up food distribution in Oakland, California, on Thursday.<\/span> Photograph: John G Mabanglo\/EPA<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re giving out a lot of resources, and they\u2019re really just hitting all of those food pantries. Places where there\u2019s anything to help are getting hit so hard that they just really can\u2019t meet the need.\u201d<\/p>\n Pausing the scheme was \u201creally punitive\u201d, added Waters. \u201cIt\u2019s another way to get people off of the benefit \u2026 It\u2019s really scary times. There\u2019s so many things up in the air. People really don\u2019t have any way to plan or prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n Contacted for comment, the US Department of Agriculture \u2013 which oversees Snap benefits \u2013 pointed to a memo, which said that \u201cmaximum allotments\u201d for households were being reduced to 50% during November \u201cdue to the limited availability of Federal funding\u201d and \u201corders from two courts\u201d.<\/p>\n Should the shutdown persist, and Snap funding fail to be restored, Waters expressed fear things will get worse very quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the next month we\u2019re going to see things get drastically more dire if we don\u2019t get this shutdown turned around and get our situation with health insurance and food care fixed. People need those basic things just to survive,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are using our country\u2019s poorest and most vulnerable as pawns in a political game, and that\u2019s not acceptable on any level. It\u2019s not OK for us to be denying people basic things like food and medical care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Stacy Smith, a government worker, showed up to work last Monday \u2013 the first working day after food benefits lapsed, amid the ongoing federal shutdown \u2013 she found a long line outside her office door. Elderly and disabled individuals desperately wanted answers. Some had gone to buy groceries, not realizing that their usual benefits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[794,12501,319,558,13611,1437,11209,3172,81,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-32819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-countrys","10":"tag-federal","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-pawns","13":"tag-poorest","14":"tag-shutdown","15":"tag-snap","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}