SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The antihunger benefits program known as SNAP is, as of today, on pause, and millions of Americans have not received money that they were counting on to buy groceries this weekend. That's despite two federal judges ruling yesterday that the pause is unlawful. President Trump said last night he's open to keeping SNAP going despite the government shutdown, but how or when that might happen is still unclear today. Jennifer Ludden is with us to explain where we are and how we got here. Hi, Jennifer.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Hi there.
PFEIFFER: What are you hearing from SNAP recipients about what this means for them?
LUDDEN: Well, first, let's just be clear, 42 million people in America are enrolled in SNAP. That's 1 in 8 people potentially impacted by this disruption. Krystal Barrett (ph), who lives in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, is a mother of two boys. She told NPR, the program is a lifeline. And although she's been trying to stock up on some foods, this pause is extremely stressful.
KRYSTAL BARRETT: Super stressed - we rely on the benefits. They support all of our food needs.
PFEIFFER: Jennifer, help us understand why the administration was previously saying there was no money available to continue SNAP during the shutdown, and also what the rulings by the two judges mean.
LUDDEN: So the administration pointed out that, look, Congress did not pass a budget before this shutdown happened, so there was not enough money for SNAP. There was really no money allocated for the agency that oversees it. And they argued, on top of that, that they did not have legal authority to tap contingency funds, saying those are meant for things like natural disasters.
Now, two judges yesterday rejected that. They said, Congress did provide more than $5 billion in emergency funds for exactly this kind of situation, and the administration not only can use that money, it must. Now, both judges gave the administration until Monday to come back with a plan for how it would proceed.
PFEIFFER: If that money gets flowing again, how quickly could people counting on the assistance get it?
LUDDEN: So we really do not know. One question is, will the administration appeal? Another question - if they, say, agree to tap only the contingency fund, that falls well short of SNAP's November budget, which is $9 billion, so people would not get the full amount they qualify for. And in that case, the administration has said calculating partial payments is a logistical nightmare, and it could take time to arrange, especially in the middle of a shutdown.
Now, as for President Trump, a few hours after these rulings, he addressed them in a social media post. He said he's instructed his lawyers to clarify with the court how they can legally fund SNAP. And if they do, he said, it will be my honor to provide funding just like I did with the military and law enforcement pay.
PFEIFFER: Jennifer, SNAP is a massive program that's been scrutinized over the years. You've been looking at how we got here.
LUDDEN: I have. Let me give you a bit of the history.
Back in the depths of the Great Depression, with mass unemployment, the federal government faced a dilemma - how to keep farmers from going broke.
CHRISTOPHER BOSSO: The farmers are terribly productive. But you didn't have demand, so the farmers couldn't sell their crops.
LUDDEN: Christopher Bosso teaches public policy at Northeastern University and wrote a history of SNAP.
BOSSO: And at the other end, you had hunger.
LUDDEN: Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the government started sending towns baskets of surplus food to hand out for free. But Bosso says local retailers hated that idea. It took business away from them.
BOSSO: So some smart people in the industry and in the government said, hey, wait a minute. Why don't we make it possible for people to purchase food in stores?
LUDDEN: That became a pilot program in 1939 using food stamps. Later, then-Senator John F. Kennedy took up the cause while visiting impoverished West Virginia. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 launched a permanent aid program now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Today, the federal government spends $100 billion a year on SNAP benefits, which still support farmers and food retailers. But Angela Rachidi with the conservative American Enterprise Institute says the program has grown in an unexpected way.
ANGELA RACHIDI: What's interesting about SNAP is while it increases when the economy is bad, it doesn't return to where it was when the economy is good. So over the past really three decades, we've seen this steady increase over time.
LUDDEN: There are many reasons, including a surge in participation since the Great Recession that started in 2007. Many states which administer SNAP have also expanded eligibility, and Rachidi says they've eased and even waived the program's stringent work requirement.
RACHIDI: If you have a completely, you know, work-capable individual who doesn't have any dependents and you have a good economy, there's questions about whether that household should be receiving SNAP benefits without it conditioned on something.
LUDDEN: To be clear, most people getting SNAP are seniors, children or have a disability, but more than a quarter do work or are between jobs. Earlier this year, congressional Republicans expanded SNAP's work requirement to include older people and more parents. Lawmakers have also made it harder for states to waive those work requirements. It's part of the biggest budget cut in the program's history, and it's projected to push some 2.4 million people off SNAP.
Researcher Bosso says most who can work already do. He sees a different reason for why SNAP has kept growing even when unemployment is low.
BOSSO: People have jobs, but they're not making enough money.
LUDDEN: Combine that with rising costs of housing, food, electricity, and he and others say it helps explain why food insecurity rates have been stubbornly high.
JOEL BERG: The hunger issue is the greatest embodiment of the decline of the middle class.
LUDDEN: Joel Berg heads the nonprofit Hunger Free America.
BERG: SNAP is the last broad-based support for low-income or moderate-to-low-income people in America that still exists.
LUDDEN: Beyond what's driven SNAP's growth, Berg, Bosso and Rachidi all agree on this - losing benefits for even one month will be devastating for those who rely on them.
LINDA JACK: Without food stamps, most of the people in this building are not going to make it.
LUDDEN: Linda Jack is 69 and lives in subsidized senior housing with her toy poodle Zizi in Spokane, Washington. She has diabetes and a voice tremor. Jack worked for decades in health care but says her savings were wiped out in the 2008 market crash.
JACK: I haven't bought red meat in years, literally years, because I cannot afford it.
LUDDEN: Her $62 a month from SNAP lets her eat healthier. But some neighbors get far more, she says, and it's nearly their entire food budget. When we spoke earlier this week, Jack was thinking of them first as she prepared for the benefit to disappear.
JACK: And I'm going to stock up on all the soups, chili hash, that kind of stuff that I can afford because there are people who will not have food this month.
LUDDEN: And Sacha, to pick up on what Linda Jack was saying to me there, she plans to share what she can to help everyone get by. This is really a lot of money disappearing from people's food budgets, and again, we don't know for how long. Food banks are managing the immediate need through the generosity of community members. But as Radha Muthiah from Washington, D.C.'s Capital Area Food Bank says, there is a massive gap.
RADHA MUTHIAH: There's no way any food bank can make up for the loss of the entire SNAP program. For every one meal that we provide, the SNAP program provides nine.
LUDDEN: Soon after yesterday's court rulings, Oklahoma's governor announced a vote to send a million dollars a week to food banks for SNAP recipients for up to seven weeks if needed. And again, we're talking about 12% of the population that could be impacted by this pause.
PFEIFFER: That's NPR's Jennifer Ludden. Jennifer, thank you for following this.
LUDDEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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