The ongoing federal government shutdown has created a looming funding crisis for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), frequently known as food stamps, and New Jersey’s senators are calling for action from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said that food stamp funding would run out at the end of October, a dire prognostication for the 42 million people nationwide that rely on food stamps. In a letter today, Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim joined nearly the entire Democratic Senate caucus in insisting that Rollins use tools at the federal government’s disposal to keep the program funded.
“The USDA must, at a minimum under the law, use the contingency funding that is available for SNAP, as noted by USDA officials,” states the letter, which was co-led by Booker. “Second, the USDA has interchange authority under 7 U.S.C. 2257 that permits the transfer of funds from other USDA nutrition programs… In the event that more resources are needed than what is available in contingency funding, the USDA should explore all legal means to augment funds to pay the full amount of SNAP benefits in November.”
Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration said on October 17 that top state health officials are “deeply concerned” about funding for SNAP in New Jersey. If the shutdown doesn’t end before November, they warned, “there could be interruptions” in benefits for more than 800,000 New Jersey residents who receive food stamps.
“At this point in time, benefits for SNAP are guaranteed through October 31, 2025, and for [the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children] through November 10, 2025, and the State will continue to provide updates if those timeframes can be extended,” the governor’s administration said in a statement. “Historically, when the federal government reopens, all federal programs are funded retroactively, but no such assurances have been made to-date.”
While SNAP is administered by individual states, it is funded by the federal government, and Rollins and other Trump administration officials have blamed Democrats who won’t support a GOP funding bill for putting “their political agenda ahead of food security for American families.” Democrats have refused to support the bill due to a separate dispute over extending Obamacare tax credits.
In their letter today, Booker, Kim, and their Democratic colleagues said they’re open to negotiations on government funding.
“We urge you to immediately communicate to states and committees of jurisdiction the USDA’s plans to disburse the contingency funding to state agencies and utilize all available legal authorities so that American families can get benefits without interruption,” they wrote to Rollins. “Democrats remain at the table and ready to negotiate reopening the government.”
This isn’t the first SNAP-related funding fight this year. The One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed into law over the summer shifts some of the burden for funding SNAP onto states, and while it’s not yet clear how much cost-sharing New Jersey will have to do, state officials have warned the changes will blow a major hole in the state budget.
