What Is SNAP? - The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

The government shutdown continues into a fifth week, and the prolonged situation carries a new risk as millions of Americans are poised to miss their food stamp benefits on Nov. 1. The United States Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), issued a memo stating that no benefits will be distributed earlier this week, which affects 42 million people or 1 out of every 8 Americans. 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a program that was created in 1939 to help no-income and low-income families needing assistance to purchase food to maintain a baseline of health and nutrition. The USDA runs the program through the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which distributes the benefits to those who qualify through specific departments at the state level.

Those benefits first took the form of food stamps, which were a booklet of coupons with various denominations from $1 to $10. These days, SNAP recipients can make their purchases using digital electronic benefit transfer accounts, or EBT accounts, thanks to the revamping of the Food Stamp Act of 1977. Each month, the benefits are posted into the accounts and accessed through a debit card. Purchases can be made at supermarkets, convenience stores, and other retailers, including some farmers’ markets.

To qualify for SNAP, a family of four’s net income can’t exceed $31,000, which is the federal poverty line. On average, recipients get $187 monthly. Federal rules attached to the program stipulate that recipients should get their benefits, despite the Trump administration saying it’s not allowed to use a contingency fund with $5 billion in it designated for that purpose. Democratic Party-led states have argued that the money should be used, along with a separate fund of $23 billion that could be tapped into.

States have already begun advising those with EBT funds left from October to use them next month, but sparingly. Twenty-five states, including the District of Columbia, are suing the Trump administration over the suspension of benefits. A federal judge in Boston is leaning toward issuing a ruling that the government use the emergency funds. “If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” District Court Judge Indira Talwani said. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”

What Is SNAP? – The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was originally published on hiphopwired.com