USDA will fund Snap food benefits, feeding millions of Americans

After weeks of consternation and legal back-and-forth, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Friday it will pay for food benefits for more than 42 million Americans.

Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), also known as food stamps, has been at the centre of the US government shutdown, which has now entered its 38th day.

A judge told the Trump administration it had to use contingency funding to feed the one in eight Americans who depend on the program. But that funding, could not cover the full nearly $9bn (£6.9bn) monthly price tag of the program.

Then on Thursday, a different judge said the Trump administration had to fully fund the program.

The confirmation from the USDA marks what appears to be the end of one of the major through-points of the longest government shutdown is US history.

On Thursday, Judge John McConnell accused the Trump administration of withholding the food aid “for political reasons” and said that without the aid, “16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry”.

The administration filed a legal challenge to that ruling. It remains unclear what happens to the challenge now that the USDA has agreed to pay full Snap benefits.

Trump has repeatedly said that Snap is a program used by Americans in Democrat states and said the program would be funded once Democrats end the government shutdown.

In the past week, the program has gone from having its funding completely halted to being completely funded.

In the interim, millions of Americans have gone without their Snap funds.

Snap costs about $8bn per month and allows many low-income Americans to buy groceries. It provides them reloadable debit cards that they can use to buy food.

A family of four on average receives $715 per month, which breaks down to a little less than $6 per day, per person.

While individual US states administer the benefits, the programme relies on money from the federal government, which has been unfunded and shut down since 1 October.