US shutdown enters second month, SNAP payments delayed for millions
The US government shutdown enters its second month, delaying SNAP food assistance and causing health insurance costs to rise. Federal workers remain unpaid, air travel faces delays, and partisan deadlock in Congress leaves millions of Americans struggling with basic needs.
WASHINGTON: The crises at the heart of the government shutdown fight in Washington were coming to a head on Saturday as the federal food assistance programme faced delays and millions of Americans were set to see a dramatic rise in their health insurance bills.
The impacts on basic needs — food and medical care — underscored how the impasse is hitting homes across the United States. The Trump administration’s plans to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Saturday were halted by federal judges, but the delay in payouts will still likely leave millions of people short on their grocery bills.
It all added to the strain on the country, with a month of missed paychecks for federal workers and growing air travel delays. The shutdown is already the second longest in history and entered its second month on Saturday, yet there was little urgency in Washington to end it, with lawmakers away from Capitol Hill and both parties entrenched in their positions. The House has not met for legislative business in more than six weeks, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., closed his chamber for the weekend after bipartisan talks failed to achieve significant progress.
Thune said he is hoping “the pressure starts to intensify, and the consequences of keeping the government shut down become even more real for everybody that they will express, hopefully new interest in trying to come up with a path forward.”
The stalemate appears increasingly unsustainable as Republican President Donald Trump demands action and Democratic leaders warn that an uproar over rising health insurance costs will force Congress to act.
“This weekend, Americans face a health care crisis unprecedented in modern times,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said this week.
Delays and uncertainty around SNAP
The Department of Agriculture planned to withhold payments to the food program on Saturday until two federal judges ordered the administration to make them. Trump said he would provide the money but wanted more legal direction from the court, which will not happen until Monday.
The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and costs about $8 billion per month. The judges agreed that the USDA needed to at least tap a contingency fund of about $5 billion to keep the programme running. But that left some uncertainty about whether the department would use additional money or only provide partial benefits for the month.
Benefits will already be delayed because it takes a week or more to load SNAP cards in many states.
“The Trump administration needs to follow the law and fix this problem immediately by working closely with states to get nutritional assistance to the millions who rely on it as soon as possible,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in a statement following the ruling.
Republicans, in responding to Democratic demands to fund SNAP, say the program is in such a dire situation because Democrats have repeatedly voted against a short-term government funding bill.
“We are now reaching a breaking point thanks to Democrats voting no on government funding, now 14 different times,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a news conference on Friday.
