For many of your neighbors, something is better than nothing when it comes to their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments. The Trump Administration announced Monday that current, eligible FoodShare recipients will receive about half of their usual monthly allotment. Originally, all funding was supposed to be cut off on November 1. However, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that two federal court filings ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release $5.25 billion in SNAP benefits to provide at least partial payments.
The decision impacts approximately 700,000 FoodShare recipients in Wisconsin. On Halloween, President Donald Trump said he did not want the country’s 42 million SNAP recipients to go hungry and that officials were looking into alternative ways to distribute the funding. That same day, Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency related to the ongoing government shutdown. The order would require legislative leaders to approve appropriations from state funds to support federal programs—something Senate President Mary Felzkowski told Milwaukee-based WISN she does not expect to happen.
The U.S. government has been shut down since October 1, affecting approximately 900,000 federal workers. If it is not resolved by later this week, it will become the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.
