A barrage of court rulings and orders had everyone in the world of food stamps spinning last week. Yes, the Trump administration had to fund the program during the government shutdown. No, it did not. OK, it could just pay for half. Actually, it needed to cover it all.
By last Friday night, Gov. Kathy Hochul was telling New Yorkers enrolled in the program that they would start receiving food stamps again that weekend, about a week after the funding had been cut off. The next day, the Trump administration was demanding that New York and other states claw the money back.
“I managed through the 2008 economic collapse, I was here for Superstorm Sandy, I was here for Covid,” said Molly Wasow Park, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Social Services, which administers the program. “This one stands out because it was entirely avoidable.”
Money for food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, is now making its way to the nearly three million New Yorkers who rely on it. But along the way was a nail-biting scramble, according to interviews with nearly a dozen people, including city and state officials.
Lawyers and advocates pulled all-nighters. Volunteers distributed tens of thousands of pounds of emergency food. Families stockpiled bread, eggs and vegetables from food pantries, depleting the stock entirely in some places.
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