As the federal government shutdown continues, many Americans face growing uncertainty about meeting their basic needs. Federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was not distributed to states at the start of the month, leaving over 650,000 Missourians and nearly 2 million Illinois residents without benefits they were counting on to put food on the table. The average SNAP payment is $340 a month.
On Monday morning, the Trump administration responded to court orders by approving emergency funds to partially restore SNAP benefits. Tapping about $5 billion from a U.S. Department of Agriculture contingency fund will provide SNAP beneficiaries half of their usual benefit — and payments will be delayed until later in November. Typically, the monthly budget for SNAP is $8 billion to $9 billion.
Operation Food Search CEO Kristen Wild told St. Louis on the Air that her organization and its partners have been bracing for an uptick in clients and requested help.
“We've already seen families last week — before the SNAP shutdown — go to our partner agencies to get as much food as they could to stockpile because they're very concerned about not having access to these funds,” she said.
The suspension of SNAP benefits comes on top of other pressures including rising costs of living, over a million federal employees furloughed or working without pay and delays in how quickly states can distribute funds.
“We’ve got federal workers, many who have now missed two paychecks [and] typically don’t have to rely upon SNAP or any type of food assistance, but they need the assistance now,” Wild said. “It's going to take time for the federal funds to filter down to the states and for the states to administer the funds to individuals’ EBT cards. So even in the best-case scenario, families will not be getting the SNAP benefits in this first week or so, and the amount is still very much up in the air.”
In the St. Louis region, people have stepped up to help get food into people’s homes. Wild said that the philanthropic spirit is encouraging, but that food organizations have a “monumental” task ahead of them.
“Of those who receive food assistance, about 90% of it comes from federal assistance programs SNAP and WIC. The food banks and food pantries make up about 10% of the food assistance,” she said. “We are really in overdrive. Our partners are in overdrive. We're doing everything we can to shrink that gap, but 90% is a huge amount to make up.”
For more with Operation Food Search’s Kristen Wild, including resources for those seeking food assistance, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Darrious Varner is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
