Molly Beck
MADISON - Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents received full food benefits overnight after state officials moved to release the funding late Thursday before the Trump administration sought to block the payments, according to the Evers administration.
More than $104 million in benefits were paid to 337,000 households atgover midnight, a spokeswoman for Gov. Tony Evers said Friday, Nov. 7. The federal funding was distributed after the Evers administration made a request late Thursday.
Federal subsidies for meals have become a flashpoint in the fight between Democrats and Republicans who have been unable to agree on a new bill to fund the government, leading to a federal government shutdown now in its 38th day.
Should the federal shutdown continue into December, Wisconsin and other states will again be facing an end to food assistance payments.
Thursday's release of benefits for recipients of FoodShare, Wisconsin's food assistance program under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is the latest development in the saga that has landed in two federal courts.
Funding for SNAP benefits, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, expired Nov. 1.
Two federal judges issued orders last week to compel the Trump administration to tap into contingency funds to keep SNAP payments moving, but the Trump administration said it would fund only a portion of the benefits.
Doing so would cause long delays, because the systems set up to distribute benefits would need to be overhauled to release a smaller amount.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island said in a Nov. 6 court hearing responding to the Trump administration before ordering the full payments.
“They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer."
The Trump administration has asked a federal appeals court to block the order. It's unclear whether the Trump administration could pull back benefits that have already been paid.
The Trump administration said it does not have enough funds to pay full benefits.
"This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action," Trump administration wrote in a court filing seeking the emergency stay.
“This Court should allow USDA to continue with the partial payment and not compel the agency to transfer billions of dollars from another safety net program with no certainty of their replenishment."
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
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