Washington – Tomorrow, Nov. 1, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will run out of funding, imperiling food access for more than 40 million Americans. The Trump administration is refusing to use the roughly $6 billion SNAP contingency fund (or any other legally authorized funding) to continue SNAP benefits through November. This follows Trump’s July budget reconciliation bill, which stripped Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from more than 2 million vulnerable Americans.

The Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) could also soon run out of funding, jeopardizing food access for nearly 7 million people including 5.3 million children under the age of 5.

A recent Food & Water Watch map details where the most young children at risk of losing federal food assistance live, should the shutdown continue. After Puerto Rico, where a whopping 76% of children under age 5 rely on WIC food assistance, the top impacted states are:

1. California – 38% of children under five rely on WIC for food assistance
2. New York – 35%
3. Delaware – 34%
4. North Carolina – 34%
5. Kentucky – 33%
6. West Virginia – 32%
7. Oregon – 32%
8. New Mexico – 32%
9. Georgia – 31%
10. Alabama – 31%
11. Vermont – 31%

Congressional Republicans’ short-term spending bill to fund the government through November 21 would keep WIC funding flat, amounting to $600 million in cuts if enacted over the course of the year when accounting for rising inflation and grocery prices. The combined impact of SNAP and WIC delays are staggering. 

Food & Water Watch Managing Director of Policy and Litigation Mitch Jones issued the following statement:

“As Trump’s federal shutdown staggers on, it is low-income women and children who will feel the impacts first and worst. Trump is using hunger as a bargaining chip in a cruel political game. Trump must immediately release readily-available contingency funding for SNAP, and Congress needs to put food back on the table for struggling families by passing a bipartisan spending bill that protects health and nutrition for all Americans.”

Senate Democrats have rightly refused to capitulate to Republicans’ push to reopen the government with a continuing resolution, based on their insistence that critical healthcare funding be maintained and that any spending deal prevent the Republicans’ use of rescission to unilaterally cut other essential programs that Congress has already funded.

Under rescission, Congressional Republicans could unilaterally claw back funding approved in a bipartisan law with simple House and Senate majorities later on. In a letter sent to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month, more than 200 organizations from around the country demanded that Senate Democrats reject any federal appropriations bill that does not explicitly prohibit the subsequent use of the rescission process.