Some Michiganders began receiving federal food aid again Friday as the federal government said it would fully fund November benefits for SNAP recipients, even though the Trump administration has been fighting in court to avoid making those payments.
The administration has said that with the federal government shut down, there’s not enough money to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative.
About 42 million low-income Americans, including 1.4 million in Michigan, receive SNAP benefits to help them afford food. Benefits stopped going out on November 1.
But on Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fund the program in full.
Then, even as the administration sought an emergency stay to block the order from taking effect, the federal Food and Nutrition Service said in a Friday memo to regional SNAP directors that it was working to send states the money to fund full benefits for November.
Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, took aim Friday at “conflicting messages” from the Trump administration and the divergent responses to those messages on the ground.
“Literally, some states have now or are in the process of fully funding SNAP benefits in November, while plenty of other states have not,” Craig said in a statement. “Americans are still living with the uncertainty around what the hell is happening here.”
Michigan is one of the states that is working to quickly distribute full SNAP benefits for the month. Some people began getting their November benefits Friday morning.
Among them was Dana Tuller of Interlochen, who is working three jobs after her husband needed unexpected surgery and has been unable to work.
Tuller said she felt “relief” to be getting the food aid again, but also “scared about what’s going to happen next” – fearful that benefits could be rescinded if the Trump administration is successful in its court appeal.
In group chats and social media posts, some Michiganders who got their benefits said they were running to grocery stores to spend the money immediately in case it was clawed back.
The state Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that people who receive their SNAP benefits on the third, fifth, or seventh of the month should be getting that money within 48 hours of the department receiving funds from the federal government. “All other SNAP recipients will receive their full benefit payments on their normally scheduled date,” the department said.
But all of that was only true “absent a successful appeal” of the court order requiring the federal government to fully fund the program.
And the government was already appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case on Friday night.
Michigan Public’s Sneha Dhandapani, Michelle Jokisch Polo, and April Van Buren contributed reporting.
