Even though the government shutdown has ended, controversy about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal program that provides approximately 42 million Americans in need with access to food continues this weekend.
During the shutdown, SNAP benefits were paused for the first time in history – a move that was met with legal backlash and squabbling between President Donald Trump’s administration and Democrats. Despite that backlash, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced more potential SNAP disruption at a Tuesday cabinet meeting, where she said that 22 states that did not provide the federal government with information about its SNAP recipients could be losing some funding as early as next week.
“As of next week, we have begun – and will begin – to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us, and allow us to partner with them, to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” she told the president. California, Minnesota and New York are just three of the Democrat-led states on the list.
Rollins claimed that the SNAP program is plagued with “rampant” fraud and that spending on it increased by 40% when former President Joe Biden was in office. However, those claims have been disputed.
“The USDA has not presented data that backs up these statistics, which makes it hard to evaluate their significance,” NPR reported this week. It said that “some deceased individuals will inevitably be enrolled in the program because state officials have to verify the death,” but that those funds must be paid back, for example.
Furthermore, the outlet said “it is also unclear what Rollins means when she says SNAP benefits increased 40% under the Biden administration. USDA did not respond to a question seeking clarification.”
“Lauren Bauer, a fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and the associate director of The Hamilton Project, analyzed USDA data but was unable to find evidence of a 40% increase under Biden,” NPR added. “Instead, she found that during Trump’s presidency benefit costs increased by more than 30%, while during Biden's term they decreased by almost 17%.”
Sara Bleich, a professor of public health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told FactCheck.org that “by design, SNAP is countercyclical, meaning that enrollment is designed to increase during economic downturns and decrease as the economy improves.” She also said that actions by the Trump administration, including an executive order in February that “directed federal agencies to block undocumented people from accessing public benefits (who by the way were already ineligible for SNAP but this may have discouraged participation among immigrants who are eligible),” likely had an impact.
In a Friday statement, the Food Research & Action Center organization said that the USDA push for data collection started earlier this year and that a court granted a preliminary injunction (PI) blocking enforcement of a July demand and from instituting or continuing noncompliance proceedings against states that did not comply.
“What is at stake is profound: the privacy of millions of households, the program trust among mixed-status households, the integrity of federal–state cooperation, and the foundational trust necessary for basic needs programs to operate during crises,” said the group.
It also noted that a USDA spokesperson clarified on Wednesday that states must receive a formal warning before administrative funds are pulled. According to USA Today, the USDA also clarified “that only funds sent to assist with the administrative costs of the program, which are split between the agriculture department and states, would be withheld, not money for benefits themselves.”
As for the court proceedings, USA Today said that the USDA has until Dec. 15 to appeal the decision. Still, a judge already said the court would not temporarily pause its injunction in the case of an appeal.
“The USDA declined to answer questions about an appeal or its compliance with the order,” according to USA Today. It did, however, tell the outlet Dec. 3 that it had formed a “SNAP integrity team” to review data and that it planned to send a formal warning about pulling administrative funds if they don’t comply with the request for data.
Following the Tuesday meeting, Democrats clapped back at Rollins, who blamed the former administration for “destroying the economy.”
“Secretary Rollins continues to spew propaganda, attacking a food assistance program which 42 million Americans rely on to feed their families,” said U.S. Rep. Angie Craig. “Rather than address the rising cost of living, the secretary is once again weaponizing hunger by putting political talking points ahead of feeding seniors, children, veterans and Americans with disabilities.”
“I am sickened by President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ continued abuse of hungry families in America,” said U.S. Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-Conn.). “These are parents, children, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities just trying to put food on the table while the cost of basic necessities continues to soar. Yet this administration is so cruel and cold-hearted that all they see are pawns in their political game. They are so out of touch that they think starving our neighbors is good for their politics. They are so preoccupied with partisanship that they cannot see the basic humanity of the people they are hurting.”
While Republicans have worked hard to blame government shutdown and economic issues on Democrats, polling cited by Newsweek indicates that voters blame Trump and Republicans more, as the public tends to do with the group in power. Polls also continue to show that Americans have concerns about spending and a negative view of the economy as the Trump administration pursues controversial tariffs. One poll even showed that Americans think that Trump’s messaging about the economy is out of sync with reality.
During the Tuesday cabinet meeting, Trump called affordability a “fake narrative” pushed by Democrats. He said: “the word ‘affordability’ is a Democrat scam.”
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) also doubled down on the administration’s moves to make SNAP more restrictive this week. A Thursday press release from the lawmaker said she “introduced the Food Assistance Integrity and Responsibility (FAIR) Act, a bill which brings long-overdue accountability to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by requiring a photo ID on every EBT card and ensuring benefits are redeemed only by the individuals who are legally eligible to receive them.”