MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Millions of Americans are trying to figure out how they will eat this month. The national food aid program, known as SNAP, ran out of federal money this weekend. The Trump administration had said it would not put more money into the program, citing the federal government shutdown.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Two federal judges ordered the administration to use emergency money to keep SNAP afloat on Friday, but it's unclear how quickly the administration will act. Over the next few minutes, we're going to hear SNAP recipients and the former head of the agency that oversees the program. We begin with the latest on restoring funding.
MARTIN: NPR's Joe Hernandez has been following this, and he's with us now. Good morning, Joe.
JOE HERNANDEZ, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So will the government begin distributing money for SNAP benefits this week or not?
HERNANDEZ: Well, we still don't know. The U.S. Department of Agriculture manages the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The USDA's website says, quote, "the well has run dry" and blames Democrats for the government shutdown. Then you have President Trump posting on social media that he would fund the program if his administration got direction from the federal courts on how to do that. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on CNN's "State Of The Union" on Sunday and suggested SNAP funding could resume within days. Here's what he said.
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SCOTT BESSENT: President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefits.
JAKE TAPPER: So it could be done by Wednesday?
BESSENT: Could be.
HERNANDEZ: And that's because, as you mentioned, there are at least two federal lawsuits pushing the Trump administration to restart SNAP. Judges in both cases have ordered the administration to resume payments using emergency funds. In one of those cases in Rhode Island, the judge ordered the government to either make full SNAP payments by Monday or partial payments by Wednesday.
MARTIN: So if the USDA does have these emergency funds, why haven't they been used to pay for SNAP benefits this month?
HERNANDEZ: Well, the Trump administration has argued that it's not legal for them to use these contingency funds for regular SNAP benefits. They say that money is meant more for situations like natural disasters. But a coalition of Democratic state officials behind one of the lawsuits argues that the government has to use those emergency funds and that if SNAP benefits stop, it will lead to greater food insecurity across the country, which state governments will then be left to manage on their own. Now, some states are already putting up state money to try to keep benefits going, but that will probably only last days or weeks and won't be enough to replace a national federal government program. And just to give you a sense of how vast a program that is, nearly 42 million Americans rely on SNAP.
MARTIN: OK. So recognizing what you just said, that some states are trying to fill in the gap at least for a little bit, but having said that, how is the lapse in funding affecting those 42 million people?
HERNANDEZ: Yeah. It's really a historic moment for this program, which dates back to the Great Depression and has not been disrupted like this before. NPR has reported that food banks across the U.S. are already seeing a spike in demand. Jill Dixon runs The Food Depot - that's a food bank serving northern New Mexico - and says, This is really uncharted territory.
JILL DIXON: The idea that SNAP benefits wouldn't continue has never really been on the table before. There's no history for that to have occurred. So I think that that caught everyone by surprise and is incredibly disheartening and fear-inducing.
HERNANDEZ: And Dixon says people are starting to stock up on food now. At one recent distribution The Food Depot held, where they typically have fewer than 100 families in attendance, they had 150 show up.
MARTIN: OK. Before we let you go, even once SNAP does get funded again, there are still some major changes coming to the program. What are those?
HERNANDEZ: That's right, and that's due to some provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Trump signed in July - things like the age limit going up. Certain immigrants, such as refugees, will lose access to the program, and some states may have to start contributing their own money to SNAP benefits for the first time in history.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Joe Hernandez. Joe, thank you.
HERNANDEZ: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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