A woman shops at the Feeding South Florida food pantry in Pembroke Park, Fla., this month. Food banks across the country are gearing up for massive demand from an interruption to federal food aid because of the government shutdown. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
There’s no way his local government can fill the void created by a disruption in the federal food stamp program, but local official Gregg Wright says his Minnesota county had to do something.
“This is pretty much a crisis for families,” said Wright, a member of the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners.
Last week, the board unanimously voted to send up to $200,000 to a local food bank to help neighbors at risk of losing food assistance because of the federal government shutdown.
Olmsted County, which has a population of about 165,000 and is home to the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, expects to lose about $1.7 million per month in benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. It’s a predicament facing leaders across the country preparing for an unprecedented pause in the nation’s largest food assistance program as the shutdown drags on.
While attorneys general and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Tuesday to try to force it to pay SNAP benefits next month, the administration says it will not release funds until the congressional budget impasse is resolved.
That leaves food banks, food pantries and local governments scrambling to prepare for an onslaught of demand. States are declaring emergencies, deploying National Guard members and sending millions of taxpayer dollars to local food banks. Nonprofits are bracing for long lines, bare shelves and even panic or civic unrest as some 42 million Americans are expected to lose access to the safety net program in a matter of days.
“The enormity of this issue is almost hard to comprehend,” said Wright, who noted that his county is just one of the more than 3,000 across the country.
The local food bank estimated it could serve SNAP families for one month by spending about $400,000 on bulk food purchases. Rather than front that whole amount, the county board challenged community members to help raise another $200,000.
Wright said the county is unable to keep funding food assistance for long.
“We can’t continue to do this without raising taxes, because it isn’t in our budget,” he said. “ … Who could plan for this? Who would expect that this would come from the federal government?”
Minnesota is among 10 states where counties administer the food stamp program rather than state governments. Across the country, state and county governments have been redirecting local resources to try to fill the shutdown gap.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has set aside $80 million in state funds and deployed members of the National Guard to help food banks.
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency, saying the commonwealth would use its own funds to temporarily help SNAP recipients.
In Louisiana, state leaders are preparing to use $150 million monthly to help continue SNAP aid, while Nevada plans to funnel $38.8 million toward local food banks.
Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced the state would divert $4 million to food shelves across the state.
“This is meant to be a bridge,” Walz said during a Monday news conference. “It will not make up and backfill everything.”
Food banks across the country are already facing increased demand.
Who could plan for this? Who would expect that this would come from the federal government?
– Gregg Wright, Olmsted County, Minn., commissioner
Virginia Witherspoon, executive director of Channel One Regional Food Bank in Rochester, Minnesota, said the phone was “ringing off the hook” last week. The nonprofit distributes food to partners across 14 counties and operates its own food shelf in Rochester. That pantry saw an average of about 450 families per day last month, but by last week was already averaging 550 per day, Witherspoon said.
“I don’t blame anyone who is rushing to their local food shelf and stocking up because they’re afraid they won’t be able to feed their families,” she told Stateline. “What I would say is that food shelves in Minnesota — we’re here, we’re open, we want to serve you. We’re doing our absolute best.”
Channel One and other operators, though, are concerned about the potential for panic by families scrambling for food.
Witherspoon told the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners her organization has considered asking for a police presence, but wants to be careful about what kind of message it sends to the public. She said even increasing food distribution from once to twice a week could cause people to rush in.
She said it reminds her of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she went on local television to tell people not to worry, though she was privately concerned about running out of food.
“It’s tough. On the one hand, I’m in public sounding the alarm to you, to our donors, to our government,” she told commissioners. “But on the other hand, we don’t want to make the public panic and all come shop at once. It’s really not a good situation, and we’ve never been here before.”
Debate over federal funds
The predicament facing nonprofits and local governments is unprecedented: Food stamps have not been disrupted during other government shutdowns. And even the Trump administration previously offered assurance that it would tap into a multiyear contingency fund to continue paying SNAP benefits.
The administration reversed that position on Friday, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would not release funds in November and warned states they would not be reimbursed for spending their own revenues on the food program.
SNAP has about $6 billion in its contingency fund — short of the roughly $9 billion needed to cover a full month of the program.
It’s unclear what the administration’s position means for states that have already begun setting aside their own dollars.
Following Virginia’s emergency declaration, the newly created Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance program is expected to send money to SNAP beneficiaries starting on Nov. 3.
The governor estimates that about $37.5 million will be allocated per week to Virginia’s roughly 850,000 SNAP recipients, the Virginia Mercury reported.
Neither the governor’s office nor the Virginia Department of Social Services responded to Stateline requests for comment.
North Dakota officials said they had enough cash on hand to cover November SNAP benefits, but are unable to load the funds onto people’s electronic payment cards, the North Dakota Monitor reported.
State and federal lawmakers, advocates and attorneys general across the country have pushed the administration to release November SNAP funds.
Last week, the chief executive officer of the National Conference of State Legislatures asked the USDA to issue clear guidance on states’ ability to spend and be reimbursed for ongoing administrative costs.
North Carolina Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson, one of the officials who sued the Trump administration Tuesday, said 1.4 million people — including nearly 600,000 children — would lose SNAP aid in his state.
“They have emergency money to help feed children during this shutdown, and they’re refusing to spend it.”
Contingency plans
In New Hampshire, Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced a state “contingency plan” to help SNAP recipients. Pending approval from other state leaders, the plan would divert $2 million to the New Hampshire Food Bank to open up to 20 locations for SNAP recipients twice a week over the next five weeks.
Officials in Ayotte’s office and the state health department did not respond to Stateline requests for comment.
Elsy Cipriani, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, said the organization is still working out details with the state. She said the group would likely ask to see people’s electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards — the debit cards people use to access SNAP benefits at grocery stores — to ensure the state-purchased food goes to SNAP recipients.
“While we don’t intend to replace SNAP benefits — because we can’t; there is no way that we can replace that — we are hoping to provide some relief,” she told Stateline.
In Minnesota, county leaders are working overtime in some areas to respond to questions from SNAP recipients and help find other food assistance.
That additional workload comes without any state or federal reimbursement, said Tina Schenk, the health and human services director in rural Meeker County.
“That’s just to respond to our community, because that’s our job,” she said. “But that’s very different work than we normally do.”
The reserve funds of Meeker County, home to about 23,000 people, aren’t large enough to cover even one month’s worth of SNAP benefits, Schenk said. So county staff are instead working with local nonprofits and reaching out to families who will be hardest hit by an interruption in benefits to connect them with other state grant programs.
The sole local food shelf is increasing its orders with a central food bank, Schenk said — but so is nearly every other operation in the state.
“Are they going to have enough to fulfill these orders? That’s a question that I don’t know the answer to.”
Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.
