Lebanon County resident Caitlyn Stuber received her latest check from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Oct. 9.
Stuber, a 30-year-old leukemia survivor, used that $300 to buy frozen produce, breakfast sandwiches, and bags of microwavable popcorn. By the end of the month, she spent all but $70 under the impression that her November check would come in the mail soon.
But President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would pause SNAP payments during the ongoing government shutdown. Officials argued the U.S. Agriculture Department lacked the funds to continue making payments without a spending plan from Congress.
“I was relying basically solely on SNAP,” Stuber said. “I used to have disability benefits, but they’ve been ceased for about four years now. So my only technical income was SNAP, and now I have nothing.”
Stuber is far from alone.
Nearly 2 million people rely on SNAP across Pennsylvania for help buying food. Philadelphia, Fayette, Luzerne, Cameron and Northumberland counties have the highest percentages of people who benefit from SNAP.
Gov. Josh Shapiro signed on to a lawsuit with more than two dozen Democratic state attorneys general and governors across the country this week over the Trump administration’s pause in payments.
“For the first time since the program began in 1964, SNAP payments have been halted across the country because the Trump Administration has decided to use critical food assistance as a political bargaining chip,” Shapiro said in a written statement. “That is unacceptable, especially when the USDA has billions of dollars in Congressionally-appropriated contingency funding on hand to fund SNAP and ensure millions of people don’t go hungry.”
The case challenges the USDA decision not to tap into a nearly $6 billion contingency fund for SNAP during the shutdown. SNAP is a mandatory entitlement program that is not impacted by annual budget decisions.
Households in Pennsylvania receive an average of $329 per month from SNAP, according to the lawsuit, and the prevented payments also harm grocers and farmers markets that accept the funds.
The USDA shared a memo with NPR stating that the funds are “only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits.” Since no regular benefits have been appropriated, the agency argued, the funds are not available.
And a banner across the official USDA website blames Senate Democrats for opposing the GOP’s spending plan until a continuation of expiring health care subsidies is included.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the text read.
Nationwide, about 42 million people receive benefits from the roughly $8 billion spent by the federal government monthly on SNAP.
Meeting the needThe federal contingency funds could help alleviate some of the pain being felt by SNAP recipients, according to Shila Ulrich, chief executive of the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank.
“It’s the veterans, it’s the elderly, it’s the children, it’s the people that we’re working next to, the people we’re worshipping next to,” Ulrich said, when asked who is most impacted by the pause in SNAP payments. “Hunger reaches every community and every part of every place in Pennsylvania.”
Ulrich said food banks are trying to meet the needs of people across the state, and that people should visit their local food pantry to see what help is available. Her food bank, she said, experienced a 60% increase in people seeking services last week alone.
State Senate Democrats announced Tuesday their pitch to send $50 million of interest earned on Pennsylvania’s reserves directly to food banks, $10 million to Meals on Wheels and $2 million to cover administrative costs.
Sen. Art Haywood, D-Montgomery, acknowledged the proposal would not replace the more than $300 million in monthly SNAP assistance sent to the commonwealth.
“Now we’re not crazy,” Haywood said at a news conference in the Capitol, surrounded by fellow Democrats and food assistance leaders. “This is not a SNAP replacement program, but it is getting money to the organizations that can feed many Pennsylvanians.”
A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, did not respond to a request for comment on the legislation.
State lawmakers have failed to adopt a state budget for nearly five months after their June 30 deadline, halting $30 million in state food assistance programs. The federal government canceled about $19 million for anti-hunger funds earlier this year. And the federal government shutdown has forced some furloughed employees to seek help from food aid programs.
All of those factors are contributing to a “perfect storm” that makes it more difficult for organizations to combat hunger, according to Julie Bancroft, the chief executive of nonprofit Feeding Pennsylvania.
“We’ve let politics cloud our humanity outside of this building,” Bancroft said at the Senate Democrats’ meeting. “Real people are managing very real concerns about their own survival.”