Credit: (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)As Congress moves to reopen the government, legal battles over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits rage in separate federal court cases — much to the dismay and confusion of New Jersey’s 820,000 SNAP recipients.
New Jersey did obtain its full November share of SNAP benefits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last Friday, and loaded up EBT cards for eligible recipients. The money is available for them to use, according to New Jersey’s Department of Human Services.
State officials acted quickly last week — during a brief window in a volley of legal appeals — when the USDA complied with a judge’s order to let states access an almost $5 billion federal emergency funds to pay SNAP benefits. But on Saturday night, the USDA in a memo directed states to stop and “immediately undo” disbursing those benefits.
The Trump administration is now trying to claw that money back, but it’s opposed by 23 state attorneys general, including New Jersey’s Matt Platkin. He explained, the USDA on Friday had authorized funding those SNAP cards for recipients.
“They want them to fill up their supermarket basket, get to the checkout counter — already worried about whether they can afford everything in that basket, given the prices of those goods — have them swipe that card, and have it not work,” Platkin said during a Monday news conference. “That is what that letter on Saturday night would’ve done. If it were even technically capable of doing it. I never imagined in my life I would have to use my education and training as a lawyer to prevent my government — the government that I pay taxes to — to prevent it from starving American citizens. And yet, here we are.”
US Supreme Court decision
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court in a separate lawsuit on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to continue withholding SNAP benefits for at least two more days, while Congress voted on a new budget to reopen the government. Its outcome could in future determine who controls the nation’s biggest food assistance program, serving 42 million people who rely on SNAP.
The Department of Justice argued, the courts lack jurisdiction over SNAP money, noting the administration “unequivocally agrees that any lapse in SNAP funding is tragic,” but adding, “The irreparable harms of allowing district courts to inject themselves into the shutdown and decide how to triage limited funds are grave enough to warrant a stay…”
“You have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do, in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown. What we’d like to do, is for the Democrats to open up the government. Of course then we can fund SNAP, and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people,” said Vice President JD Vance last week.
Although the high court did order a stay, it did not issue an opinion on the merits of the case. And states argue, the government has a legal and moral obligation to provide SNAP funding even during a government shutdown.
New Jersey’s SNAP recipients
In New Jersey, many SNAP recipients worry about benefits getting revoked. Sharon Barton, a Pennsauken resident who is disabled, said she depends on $350 a month in SNAP benefits for her food. She scrimped for a week while the shutdown delayed SNAP benefits, which finally appeared on her card this past weekend.
“If you actually put your card number in to check how much is on the card, it’s there. And I was just so confused. I’m like, do I have money for food or do I not this month?” she said. “So I took it to the dollar store, and it went through. So now I’m worried it’s gonna be taken away again, that there’s gonna be some kind of a freeze or a hold on it. I don’t know. So I just wanna go get some food for the month. I just don’t know what’s gonna happen next.”
Barton says she went shopping, and spent almost all of her month’s allotment on less perishable food that could last through the month — just to be sure she’d have something to eat.
Lisa Pitz, director of Hunger Free NJ, explains that in the Garden State, 350,000 of people on SNAP are children, and 200,000 are seniors. They can’t afford to wait while Washington politics ultimately play out, she maintains.
“We have so many families struggling right now with the cost of living across the board, certainly the cost of groceries, housing, right? Who are really struggling, who are on a daily basis making these horrendous choices of whether or not you keep the lights on. Can you afford your medicine? Can you put gas in your car, so that you can get to your job, or do you buy food? How many times do you have to use a food pantry? How many different pantries do you have to go to, just to make sure that you have enough food for yourself and your family?” Pitz says.
New Jersey typically releases $160 million a month in SNAP benefits. Across the U.S., it adds up to $9 billion. So there wasn’t even enough in the USDA’s $5 billion contingency fund to pay for all of November. A Rhode Island judge ordered the agency to transfer extra money from a different account that pays for school lunches, to pay for SNAP. But the Trump administration argues that without a federal government appropriation, there is effectively no SNAP program.
New Jersey’s Department of Human services urges SNAP recipients to check the balance on their Families First EBT cards before they shop, here or by calling 800-997-3333.
