The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program)—the nation's largest anti-hunger program—became the center of the storm. Approximately 42 million (one in eight) low-income Americans found their dinner tables hanging in the balance of a single line of ink in a court ruling.
The Hunger Games in Court
It all began with an emergency judicial ruling. In early November, due to the government shutdown, the Trump administration announced that SNAP benefits for November could not be distributed. However, two federal judges subsequently ruled that the government could not completely halt the distribution of November benefits due to the shutdown. Among them, U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island issued an order on November 6, requiring the government to allocate approximately $4 billion from an emergency reserve fund of over $4.6 billion by 5 p.m. on November 7 to pay full SNAP benefits for November. The program costs between $8.5 billion and $9 billion per month.
In his ruling, the judge directly pointed to the government's political motives, writing: "The Court is not naïve about the government's true motivations... These statements make clear that the government is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes." He accused the government's choice of "amplifying harm and undermining the fundamental purpose of its administration of the program."
The government's response was swift and forceful. Department of Justice lawyers, in documents submitted to the federal appeals court, called the judge's order requiring the government to spend beyond available funds a violation that "tramples on the separation of powers," stating that the court has "neither appropriation power nor spending power." Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate went so far as to use a vivid metaphor, claiming the government couldn't find "$4 billion in the proverbial couch cushions," and that if forced to pay, it would have to "raid the school lunch program" funds, describing it as "robbing Peter to pay Paul."
The Supreme Court's Stay Order and an Uncertain Weekend
The legal battle escalated at an alarming speed. On November 7, the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government's request to immediately stay the district court's order and indicated it would rule as soon as possible on the merits of the payment order. The government immediately appealed the case to the Supreme Court that evening.
At dinnertime, the Supreme Court's decision arrived. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, on behalf of the court, issued a temporary order staying the district court's ruling requiring payment of $4 billion in SNAP benefits. This stay was effective for only 48 hours and would expire after the First Circuit Court ruled. The Supreme Court's intervention bought at least a weekend's respite for this crisis but also extended the uncertainty for tens of millions of beneficiaries by at least 48 hours.
In the government's petition, it warned that the district court's ruling would "metastasize" into "more severe shutdown chaos." On the other side, a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia pointed out in court documents that the government's previous decision to distribute only 65% of benefits was "chaotic and riddled with errors," requiring states' systems to be completely reprogrammed, resulting in delays of "weeks or even months" for residents in many states to receive benefits.
State Self-Rescue: A Patchwork Picture of American Livelihood
While the federal level argued endlessly, states performed a patchwork response to the crisis.
Quick Action Faction: Some states, particularly those led by Democratic governors, acted immediately after the court ruling. Wisconsin, within hours of the judge's ruling, distributed over $104 million in full benefits to approximately 337,000 households at midnight through cooperation with electronic benefit card providers. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that "food benefits are beginning to flow back to California families." Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Connecticut all stated that beneficiaries would receive full payments around the weekend.
Partial Payment and Wait-and-See Faction: Other states took more cautious approaches or were limited by technology. North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Dakota distributed partial SNAP payments on November 7 and hoped to provide full benefits over the weekend. Other states stated they were still waiting for clear federal guidance.
Self-Reliance Faction: Facing federal uncertainty, Delaware made the most unique response. Governor Matt Meyer announced that the state would use its own funds to provide SNAP beneficiaries with the first installment of what might become weekly relief payments to address the urgent need.
Waiting at the Dinner Table: Zero-Dollar Accounts and Empty Refrigerators
Behind all the legal documents and official statements were countless individual struggles. Outside a food relief station in Newark, New Jersey, the queues told the true cost of this crisis.
Jasmine Yumbay, a single mother attending college, relies on SNAP to feed her 7-month-old and 4-year-old sons. Before the benefit distribution, her account balance was $0. "Not everyone has cash they can pull out and say, 'Okay, I'm going to buy this,' especially with food prices so high right now," she said. Fortunately, on the evening of November 7, she received her monthly benefits.
Also in line was Tisina Franklin, a school bus security guard, whose SNAP account had only 9 cents left, with only three items remaining in her freezer. Her approximately $290 in monthly SNAP benefits helped feed her grandchildren. "If I don't get [the benefits], I don't have anything to eat," she said. "The money I make from work goes to bills, rent, electricity, and personal items. It's so unfair to us mothers and caregivers."
Emergency Reversal: The Federal Government's "Revocation" Order and States' Dilemma
Less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court's stay order paused this crisis, the situation took an even more dramatic turn. On the night of November 8 (Saturday), the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Trump's leadership issued an emergency memorandum to states, ordering them to "immediately revoke" all actions aimed at providing full SNAP benefits to low-income families.
This directive, obtained by The New York Times, pushed the conflict between executive and judicial branches, and between federal and state governments, to a climax. The federal government not only refused to pay full benefits but also began actively dismantling the temporary relief bridges that states had built during the court ruling's window. The memorandum threatened that if states did not quickly "comply" with this new order, they would face financial penalties. This order added insult to injury to an already chaotic situation.
As of November 9 (Sunday), officials in multiple states stated they were still uncertain how this directive would specifically affect approximately one in eight Americans who rely on SNAP. For states that had already initiated payment processes, this "revocation order" meant enormous administrative waste and moral dilemmas—systems had already been activated, some benefits may have already been distributed to beneficiaries' electronic accounts, and "revocation" was extraordinarily difficult at both technical and practical operational levels, potentially even meaning recovering already-distributed funds from impoverished families.
An Unfinished Contest
This contest surrounding SNAP has escalated from a legal debate about constitutional powers and appropriation authority to a fierce confrontation of federal executive power directly intervening in state-level affairs.
The dinner tables of 42 million people, after experiencing the brief hope brought by judicial rulings and the pause by the Supreme Court, are now shrouded in the shadow of the federal government's forceful order. This crisis has already transcended the government shutdown itself, becoming a cruel microcosm of American political polarization and checks and balances. The race between law and hunger now has another powerful administrative obstructor, making the outcome increasingly unpredictable.
Forty-two million people are still waiting for a final answer.
The Piglets' Cries and Silent Wheat Fields
In the American Midwest of 1933, the air was filled with a starkly contradictory despair. In Chicago, men lined up at soup kitchens, their stomachs burning from emptiness. Meanwhile, on Iowa farms, cries pierced the dawn—not the crying of babies, but the screams of piglets being dragged to slaughter. According to directives from the National Corn-Hog Committee, nearly six million pigs were executed and buried to reduce that "surplus" billion pounds of pork, attempting to pull prices back from the cliff's edge.
Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace, an idealistic agronomist, called this "a shocking commentary on civilization." How could one destroy food while watching compatriots starve? This paradox haunted New Deal-era Washington like a ghost. Destruction was morally repugnant; but directly giving surplus grain to the poor would anger food retailers and destroy an already fragile market economy.
The solution ultimately came from a conception as intricate as a Swiss watch. In the spring of 1939, in Rochester, New York, the first fortunate families began using a new form of currency: orange food stamps could purchase any food, and for every dollar of orange stamps purchased, the government would gift fifty cents in blue food stamps, limited to purchasing surplus commodities designated by the Department of Agriculture—perhaps Idaho potatoes or California pears.
Its designer, Milo Perkins, president of the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, described it as building "a bridge between the cliff of surplus farm products and the cliff of malnourished, outstretched-hand urban populations." The cleverness of this bridge was that everyone walked upon it: farmers gained a market, retailers kept their business, and the poor gained near-ordinary customer dignity at the grocery store. It didn't challenge capitalism's basic logic but infused it with a touch of conscience.
However, the smoke of war consumed the surplus agricultural products. In 1943, this program, hailed as successful, quietly ended. But it had already planted a seed: the nation has both the capability and responsibility to bridge the chasm between abundance and hunger.
Dormant Seeds and the Call of the Wilderness
The twenty years after the war were twenty years when America forgot hunger. The economy boomed, suburbs expanded, the middle class grew. But beneath the surface, the agricultural technology revolution—hybrid seeds, fertilizers, giant machinery—was creating new surpluses with unprecedented efficiency. Grain piled up in government-rented WWII cargo ships, becoming silent monuments.
Yet in the deep hollows of Appalachia, in the shacks of the Mississippi Delta, hunger never left. It just became invisible until the 1960 Democratic primary, when Senator John F. Kennedy's motorcade drove into a coal mining town in West Virginia. There, he witnessed firsthand children's bellies swollen from malnutrition and saw families barely surviving on federal relief canned goods. Political opportunity and moral outrage converged at this moment. Kennedy's aide later recalled: "At that moment, he understood that 'want amid plenty' was not a historical concept but a living reality."
On January 21, 1961, Kennedy's first day in office, he signed his first executive order, requiring the Department of Agriculture to expand food assistance. The tool was the long-dormant food stamp program. Five months later, Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman stood in a grocery store in Welch, West Virginia, watching the wife of unemployed miner Alderson Muncy, who had thirteen children, use brand-new food stamps to purchase a can of pork and beans. This was a symbolically significant purchase: not a surplus commodity, but a meal of her own choosing. One of the program's designers, USDA economist Isabelle Kelley, a woman who carved out space in a male-dominated bureaucratic system, observed calmly. She knew this simplified new program (which eliminated the complex blue stamps) was no longer simply agricultural policy; it concerned nutrition and dignity.
A Faustian Handshake and Permanent Legislation
But the pilot program relied on executive branch discretion, like a candle in the wind. To make it permanent required congressional legislation. And this led to one of the exemplary "Faustian bargains" in American political history.
In the House, the Agriculture Committee was controlled by Southern Democrats like Harold Cooley of North Carolina, who viewed food stamps as detestable "relief" that would consume precious "farmers' money." Urban liberals, like Leonor Sullivan of St. Louis, fought for this for a full ten years.
The breakthrough came from pure legislative deadlock. A key cotton and wheat subsidy bill couldn't pass due to opposition from urban legislators. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a master of the art of political deals, saw an opportunity. He applied "not-so-gentle pressure."
The core of the deal was simple but changed history: rural legislators voted to support the food stamps that cities wanted, and urban legislators voted to support the crop subsidies that rural areas wanted. There was no written contract, but consensus was reached in hallways and smoke-filled conference rooms. A legislator at the time recalled: "You never used the word 'deal'... but Mrs. Sullivan talked with Cooley, talked with me, and we all understood."
In 1964, the Food Stamp Act passed by a narrow margin. When Lyndon Johnson signed the bill, he called it "the most valuable weapon in the war on poverty." However, the fate of this weapon was henceforth tightly bound to agricultural subsidies. Food stamps, a program essentially aimed at addressing urban and rural poverty, were permanently housed under the Department of Agriculture's roof. This was a marriage forged for survival, offering both protection and constraints.
From Surplus Disposal to Lifeline
The bill passed, but the initial program still bore the marks of an old era—families had to "purchase" their benefits, an insurmountable chasm for the poorest. Then, in the late 1960s, a new force swept through.
Civil rights activists, investigative journalists, and legislators like Senator Robert Kennedy launched their own "war." They went to the Mississippi Delta, using cameras and congressional hearings to brutally expose the hidden truth of hunger. CBS's documentary "Hunger in America" showed babies with bellies swollen from malnutrition, shocking the nation.
Under pressure, the program began to expand and evolve. The spirit of bipartisan cooperation was embodied in an unlikely alliance: liberal Democrat George McGovern of South Dakota and conservative Republican Robert Dole of Kansas. Both were WWII veterans who deeply understood hunger's destructive power. Together they led a Senate nutrition committee, setting political differences aside.
The real revolution occurred in 1977. After years of advocacy, Congress eliminated the purchase requirement. Food stamps were no longer a subsidy requiring investment but pure welfare based on need. This change completed a fundamental transformation: from a program designed to handle agricultural surplus to a basic pillar of national anti-poverty policy. It quietly became an automatic stabilizer against economic downturns for millions of families, whether in cities or rural areas.
Surviving the Anti-Welfare Frenzy
In the 1980s, the winds shifted again. President Ronald Reagan entered the White House with promises to reduce government size and boost national spirit. In his speeches, the image of a "welfare queen" driving a Cadillac and shopping with food stamps (an anecdote later proven to be fabricated) stirred public outrage. Food stamps, visible in grocery store checkout lines due to their tangible vouchers, became a ready target.
Reagan's budget drastically cut welfare, but the core structure of the food stamp program survived. Why? Because it was embedded in the Farm Bill. Attempting to kill food stamps would detonate the entire political ecosystem connecting urban and rural constituencies. This was a fuse no pragmatic politician wanted to pull.
1996 brought the ultimate test. President Bill Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it," collaborating with a Republican-controlled Congress to sign the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). This law effectively ended the sixty-year federal cash assistance guarantee, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).
However, amid the ruins of cash welfare, food stamps—though weakened—still stood. It survived because it concerned food, not cash. It had powerful allies, from Walmart to grocery store chains nationwide. It remained an integral part of agricultural legislation. The political marriage proved its enduring power.
As part of the compromise, Congress mandated that states adopt Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) systems. By the early 21st century, the colored vouchers disappeared, replaced by an ordinary debit card. This technological change had profound psychological effects: families using SNAP (renamed "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program" in 2008) looked like any other customer at checkout. Stigmatization, though not eradicated, was greatly reduced.
The Enduring Paradox
Today, SNAP's story continues to be written. It weathered the surge of the Great Recession and the test of the pandemic, proving its critical role as an economic shock absorber. Political struggles continue, battles over work requirements and eligibility, echoing century-long debates about who deserves assistance and what kind of assistance the state should provide.
SNAP's history is a chronicle of America, full of pragmatic compromises, unexpected alliances, and fundamental contradictions. It began with a simple goal: finding common ground between farmers needing income and the hungry needing food. It evolved into a promise: in this bountiful nation, no child should go hungry. It didn't originate from a grand ideological blueprint but from crisis after crisis, movement after movement, deal after deal. It's imperfect and far from omnipotent. But it demonstrates how, in the land of plenty, facing the challenge of hunger, a system combining resilience, pragmatism, and a touch of dignity has survived time and again through the currents of history, stubbornly fulfilling its original promise.
Social Screening Mechanism
In America, SNAP's eligibility criteria function as a precise social screening mechanism designed to direct limited resources precisely to groups most in need of assistance. Understanding this eligibility system requires examination from four dimensions: household composition, economic thresholds, work obligations, and special exclusions.
The definition of household unit forms the foundation of eligibility determination. SNAP uses "household" as the minimum application unit, with a standard that is both realistic and flexible—those who purchase food together and eat together are considered the same household. This definition transcends traditional kinship; individuals living alone constitute a household, and roommates who share meals can apply as a unit. But the law also draws clear boundaries: spouses, children under 21, and parents must apply jointly, as if connected by invisible institutional bonds. However, disabled elderly over sixty who cannot share meals with cohabitants due to physical limitations can apply individually even while living under the same roof, reflecting policy respect for special groups.
The economic review mechanism functions like two filters; applicant households must pass both gross income and net income tests. The gross income threshold is set at 130% of the federal poverty line; using 2024 standards as an example, a four-person household's monthly income cannot exceed $3,039. The net income standard is stricter, needing to be below 100% of the poverty line ($2,338 in the same example). Net income calculation embodies policy warmth: deducting from gross income a standard deduction ($162 for 1-2 person households), 20% earned income deduction, childcare costs, and excess housing expenses (the portion exceeding 50% of income). This design acknowledges the legitimacy of work costs and survival necessities.
Asset limits set an anti-abuse barrier for this safety net. Ordinary households' liquid asset cap is $2,250, but this is relaxed to $3,500 for elderly or disabled households. The policy wisely excludes homes, pensions, heirloom jewelry, and other assets maintaining basic living from consideration, avoiding depriving long-term survival foundations for temporary assistance.
Special groups enjoy differentiated treatment: households with members over 60 or with disabilities can be exempt from the gross income test, and medical expenses exceeding $35 can be deducted. This design demonstrates policy's special care for vulnerable populations.
Work obligation provisions embody the balance of rights and responsibilities. Able-bodied adults aged 18-49 without dependents (ABAWDs) must comply with work registration, accept suitable work, and participate in vocational training requirements. The strictest is the "three-month time limit" provision—within three years, they can only receive three months of benefits unless working or participating in training for 20 hours weekly. But this provision has a built-in economic cycle adjustment valve: areas with unemployment rates exceeding 10% can receive exemptions; in 2023, over 30 states temporarily suspended this provision.
Categorical Eligibility constructs an efficient channel for the welfare system. Families currently receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or state general assistance can directly obtain SNAP eligibility. More notably, 42 states implement "broad-based categorical eligibility," including families receiving any TANF-funded services (even just an information brochure) within the eligibility scope, greatly simplifying administrative processes.
Finally, exclusion clauses define policy red lines. Most non-citizens (except humanitarian protection recipients), strikers, intentional rule violators, fugitives, and certain student groups are not accepted. Restrictions on college students are particularly detailed—unless working 20+ hours, participating in work-study programs, or caring for young children, they typically don't qualify.
This eligibility system is like a carefully calibrated scale, with taxpayer funds on one end and vulnerable groups' survival needs on the other. It's implemented uniformly yet flexibly across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and overseas territories, maintaining federal standard consistency while preserving local adaptability through state options. Each household passing review receives not just numbers on an electronic benefit card but a safety net to weather economic winters, embodying the state's most basic survival guarantee commitment to its citizens.
When Government Shutdown Collides with Food on the Table
However, from late 2018 to early 2019, the U.S. federal government experienced a historic 35-day shutdown. This political impasse unexpectedly became a massive "social experiment," clearly showing us what happens to ordinary families' dinner tables when the stable rhythm of benefit distribution is disrupted.
To avoid the shutdown preventing February benefits from being distributed, the Department of Agriculture urgently ordered on January 8: advance all families' February benefits to January distribution.
Thus, in January 2019, many low-income families were surprised to find their food stamp accounts received double the money—January's normal benefits plus all of February's benefits. This seemed like a "windfall," a sudden "feast."
But there's no free lunch. The subsequent "bill" was: throughout February, no household would receive any new food stamp benefits. This meant they had to use the money received in January to support two full months of food expenses. For families with already tight budgets, this was undoubtedly a huge challenge.
The "Month-End Anxiety" of the Money Pouch: Research-Revealed Consumption Plunge
Economists seized this opportunity to carefully compare these families' shopping data from 2018 and 2019. They discovered a clear pattern:
Overall spending declined: In February 2019, households eligible for SNAP saw their total retail spending decrease by approximately $28.5 (a 5.4% decline) compared to normal circumstances.
"Month-end anxiety" was particularly evident: This spending reduction wasn't evenly distributed. In the first two weeks of February, the impact wasn't obvious, possibly because late January's "double benefits" still had a balance. But in the latter two weeks, especially the last week, spending showed a cliff-like drop, declining nearly 10%!
What does this indicate? It shows that many families were unable to successfully spread that "windfall" evenly across two months of consumption. They may have done some stockpiling in January, but by late February, both money pouches and food cupboards hit bottom.
Not Just Food: Comprehensive Belt-Tightening
Deeper analysis found that families' reduced spending wasn't limited to food covered by food stamps (like fresh produce, dry goods) but also included non-food items that couldn't be purchased with food stamps (like household items), and even much retail spending that couldn't be clearly categorized.
This detail is crucial. It means the change in benefit distribution timing affected not just "what to eat" but the entire household's economic situation and consumption capacity. To cope with late February's cash shortage, families had to comprehensively tighten spending.
States "Stepping In" and the Second Experiment
This chaos also spawned a second "experiment." Because states originally distributed benefits on different dates (some finished by early month, others scattered to mid or even late month), this advance distribution meant some states' families faced nearly 60 days without benefits.
Therefore, 29 states nationwide decided to also advance benefit distribution in March and April to shorten this painful waiting interval. The result? Research found that in these states with advance benefit distribution, eligible families' spending in the last week of the month was significantly lower than families in states where benefit distribution timing remained unchanged.
This again confirmed the same conclusion: the timing point of benefit distribution tangibly affects households' consumption rhythm.
Time is Also a Form of Nutrition
This study, inadvertently prompted by a political storm, taught us a vivid economics lesson. It tells us that for low-income families living on stable cash flow, the "permanent income hypothesis" (suggesting people smooth consumption based on long-term expectations) largely fails. They're more in a "hand-to-mouth" state; the timing of cash inflow directly determines the rhythm of consumption outflow.
Government benefit distribution is not merely fund transfer but a commitment and plan regarding time. Breaking this time rhythm, even if the total amount remains unchanged, produces real, negative impacts on household welfare—it makes already stretched household budgets more vulnerable at month's end, forcing them to make harder choices between sustenance and other necessities.
Therefore, this research ultimately points to a simple yet profound truth: for ensuring basic living, stable, predictable assistance is as important as the amount of assistance itself. Time is also an invisible, critically important form of nutrition.
References:
Sonja Sharp. "Supreme Court blocks order for Trump administration to cover SNAP benefits — for now" ("Los Angeles Times")
David A. Lieb, Michael Casey, Scott Bauer and Mike Catalini. "Trump administration seeks to block court order for full SNAP payments in November" ("Los Angeles Times")
Christopher Bosso. "Why SNAP Works: A Political History—and Defense—of the Food Stamp Program"
Carolyn R. Foster. "U.S. Domestic Food and Nutrition Assistance: Policies and Programs (Hunger and Poverty: Causes, Impacts and Eradication)"
Mindy Marks, Silvia Prina, Roy Gernhardt. "IZA DP No. 16452: Government Shutdown and SNAP Disbursements: Effects on Household Expenditures"
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