BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Agriculture responded to a federal court in Rhode Island saying it will only partially fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits using its SNAP contingency fund, which will fund about 50% of SNAP benefits. The response comes after the federal court in Rhode Island ordered the USDA to use the contingency fund to provide SNAP benefits during the ongoing federal government shutdown, and that if the contingency fund cannot fully fund benefits in November, then the federal government must consider other, additional funding sources. Campbell states that the USDA says it will not use other funding sources to provide SNAP benefits in full for November.
“Never in the history of the SNAP program – including during government shutdowns – has SNAP funding ever been suspended or only partially funded,” said AG Campbell. “While some funding is better than no funding, the federal government has made it clear that they are only willing to do the bare minimum to help our residents, and only after they were required to do so by our lawsuit and the courts. The Trump Administration has the means to fund this program in full, and their decision not to will leave millions of Americans hungry and waiting even longer for relief as government takes the additional steps needed to partially fund this program.”
“The Trump Administration just admitted what we have known all along – this funding was available this entire time and the President could have been using it to prevent American families from going hungry. Families should never have been put through this, and it shouldn’t have taken a Court order to force President Trump to feed American families like every president before him,” said Governor Healey. “The Trump Administration is now committing to using contingency funding to at least partially cover SNAP benefits. President Trump should commit to fully funding SNAP benefits and make these full benefits available as soon as possible. I’m grateful for Attorney General Campbell and her colleagues for their work to secure this Court order and make sure American families don’t go hungry.”…