Urge lawmakers and the Department of Agriculture to release SNAP contingency funds and to ensure no delays in hunger benefits during the government shutdown.
There are 42 million Americans who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to feed their families who are at risk of seeing delays of their November benefits due to the current government shutdown. This comes as other essential hunger programs, such as the Women, Infants and Children’s Program (WIC), and free/reduced school meals are also set to run out of contingency funding due to the shutdown around the first week of November.
Through ELCA World Hunger and our congregational networks across the country, we witness daily the vital role SNAP and federal programs play in preventing hunger. Our food pantries, community meals and hunger relief organizing efforts complement but cannot replace these benefits. The families we serve – working parents, children, seniors and people with disabilities – are counting on these benefits to survive.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2025 Lapse of Funding Plan explicitly stated that SNAP operations should continue during a shutdown using contingency funding – before it was removed from the website in late October. Historically, both Republican and Democratic administrations have found ways to sustain SNAP and other hunger programs during government shutdowns, recognizing the significance of the program and that low-income families should not need to suffer due to political gridlock. Previously, the Trump administration this month worked to temporarily extend WIC benefits for several weeks with tariff revenue. Yet the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has left states in the dark and failed to release critical SNAP dollars.
Allowing hunger to deepen during a government shutdown is a policy choice and possibly a violation of law, not an inevitability. Please contact your members of Congress today, urging them to demand that USDA immediately release guidance to states, distribute contingency funding and ensure uninterrupted SNAP and hunger benefits for November and beyond. Congress should also negotiate and meet ASAP to end the government shutdown as soon as possible to avert additional harm to low-income families.
Let’s speak up for our neighbors in greatest need! Customize this message with your values and local experiences. Thank you for your advocacy.
[Posted: 10/27/2025]
