Santa Barbara County’s Department of Social Services received an email today that full CalFresh (SNAP) benefits have been loaded into people’s accounts and can be issued immediately. Anyone who had delayed November benefits should be able to access that money today, and everyone whose benefit-release day is forthcoming should receive their full November benefits on time, Social Services says. More than 55,000 people receive these federally funded food benefits in Santa Barbara County. Together, children and seniors make up the majority of recipients.
That news is welcome after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) withheld funds for SNAP, the nation’s largest food assistance program, last week due to the government shutdown.
In that time, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to release funding for the program, most recently on November 6. Judge John J. McConnell Jr., a U.S. District Judge in Rhode Island said the Trump administration had to release the full benefits by today.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration agreed to fund partial benefits; that decision came after Judge McConnell Jr. and U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts both ruled that the USDA should release at least some of the money. Then, President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that the benefits will be “given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up the government” on November 4.
In his second ruling, Judge McConnell said the administration had violated his first ruling, which said partial benefits needed to be distributed by November 5.
“That’s the plain reading of the court’s order, and instead the government did nothing to ensure that the money would be paid on Wednesday,” he said.
The Trump administration has already appealed Judge McConnell Jr.’s ruling. Vice President J.D. Vance called the ruling “absurd” and said that if Democrats opened up the government, the government could fund SNAP.
The shutdown, which has 670,000 federal employees furloughed and others working without pay, centers on healthcare. Democrats want to extend funding for healthcare premium subsidies for insurance plans from the Affordable Care Act (think Covered California here). They also want to maintain $1 trillion in Medicaid funding that the Republican bill proposes to cut.
Earlier this week, Santa Barbara’s House Representative Salud Carbajal said that Republicans are refusing to negotiate the end of the shutdown.
“Instead, they are choosing to weaponize hunger and cut off SNAP benefits for millions of families. I’m working to lower health care costs, keep food on the table, and reopen the government for the American people,” he said in the November 2 post.
