The Trump Administration is trying to break the stalemate in the ongoing federal shutdown over health care by threatening to cut assistance that helps 40 million Americans put food on the table each month. President Trump’s move flies in the face of previous actions by his own administration as well as the plain reading of federal law. Nevertheless, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has told Maine and other states that it will not fund November SNAP benefits while the shutdown is ongoing.
In Maine, this means just under 170,000 individuals in almost 100,000 households risk not receiving regular SNAP payments. Most households receiving SNAP include working adults, but broadly, SNAP recipients are among the most vulnerable Mainers. According to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services:
- Three quarters of SNAP households include a working adult. Many SNAP families include adults who work hard to make ends meet in jobs that don’t pay a living wage.
- More than half of households receiving SNAP include someone with a disability, 43% include an adult over the age of 60, and over a third include children, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
SNAP not only feeds families but brings $29 million of federal funding to Maine each month that ripples into local economies. SNAP dollars go directly to grocery and convenience stores and pay the wages of people who work there, who then spend that money on things like haircuts, gas, or new snow tires, circulating it through the local economy. The USDA estimates every $1 in SNAP spending results in $1.50 in total economic activity.
SNAP is especially important for rural Maine, where full-time work is harder to find and jobs generally pay lower wages. In Somerset County, 1 in 5 residents rely on SNAP benefits, which account for 17% of all grocery and convenience store spending.
The Trump Administration needs to stop holding tens of thousands of Mainers with low income hostage in its shutdown fight. It must follow the law and use all the tools available to pay SNAP benefits in November.