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a federal judge in boston will consider the proposal on Thursday that will require trump Administration will continue funding snap Food aid program despite government shutdown.
The hearing before US District Judge Indira Talwani comes two days before the US Department of Agriculture plans to halt payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after it said it could not continue funding it because of the shutdown.
The program serves approximately 1 in 8 Americans and is a key part of the nation’s social safety net. News broke in October that a shutdown on November 1 would result in a large number of deaths, leaving states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own money to keep versions of the program running.
democratic State attorneys general or governors of 25 states, as well as District of Columbiachallenged the plan to stop the program, arguing that the administration had a legal obligation to keep it running.
The administration said it was not allowed to use nearly $5 billion in contingency funds for the program, which reversed a USDA plan prior to the shutdown that said the money would be used to keep SNAP running. Democratic officials argued that that money not only could be used, but should be. He also said that a separate fund of about $23 billion is available for this purpose.
The program costs approximately $8 billion per month.
It was not immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the decision. That process often takes one to two weeks.
To qualify for SNAP this year, a family of four’s net income cannot exceed the federal poverty line, or about $31,000 a year. Last year, SNAP provided assistance to 41 million people, about two-thirds of whom were families with children, according to the lawsuit.
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Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.