When a little more than half of her monthly food stamp benefit came through on Tuesday, Deana Pearson headed to the grocery store and spent all $172 of it. She bought eggs, cheese, meat, sugar and produce.
For two weeks, Ms. Pearson, 61, of Chouteau, Okla., had been forced to scrimp. Her balance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 42 million low-income people buy groceries every month, had shrunk to $1.17, she said.
That led Ms. Pearson to visit a local food bank. Some of the food there was moldy, she said, but at least it was free.
She hopes Tuesday’s trip to the grocery store will last for a week or two, but she said she felt uneasy about relying on federal benefits and was worried they could be discontinued again at some point. People already had little faith in government, she said, but at least the food stamp program seemed automatic. “Now you can’t even have that,” she said.
For the roughly one in eight Americans who depend on SNAP, there has never been an interruption of benefits like the one that surprised them this month — a product of the longest government shutdown in American history. Now that the government has reopened, the flow of SNAP money is expected to return to normal soon.
Recipients’ confidence in the program, on the other hand, may be slow to recover.
The New York Times this week followed up with many of the dozens of recipients who had responded to a survey in early November about coping without benefits.
Many expressed lingering worry and frustration. Some were still waiting for their full monthly benefit, while others were making do with less than usual. Even for those whose benefits have been fully restored, grocery shopping felt less like a relief and more like a gamble.
Jeanne Nihart, 44, of Anoka, Minn., uses SNAP to feed herself and her 12-year-old daughter. Her benefits are back, she said, but her trust in the system has eroded.
She could not rush to the store like she wanted to this week, because of health issues that prevent her from driving. So she planned to wait until Friday, when a support worker would be available to run errands with her.
In the meantime, she worried. “If I use those benefits, what happens if they need to get reversed or taken back?” she asked. “Does that mean I won’t get benefits in December?”
SNAP is funded federally but administered largely by state agencies. During the shutdown, governors and local lawmakers struggled to interpret the changing guidance from the Trump administration and federal courts, and many scrambled to figure out whether states could pay for food stamps on their own.
The result was a nationwide hodgepodge: In some states, families got all of their grocery assistance for November without much delay. In others, they waited for a week or more, only to get some relief — or none.
Even now, as the federal government starts to run again, SNAP is in for some changes: Benefits will be harder to get. Tax cuts enacted this summer as part of President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill will be financed in part by restrictions on food stamps, including stricter work requirements. So for many who saw their SNAP accounts bounce back this week, the relief was tempered by angst.
Jessica Mayne, 32, of Denver, took on some credit card debt to feed her family of eight this month. When she saw that her benefits were available last weekend, she ran downstairs to tell her husband, she said.
“We got it!” she recalled yelling. “We got the money!”
Ms. Mayne wasted no time. On Sunday, she spent $470 of her monthly $650, out of concern that the government might somehow try to take the money back. She scoured Walmart, Safeway and King Soopers for the best deals on Thanksgiving ingredients, pantry staples and packages of meat destined for a deep freeze.
It is a pattern she plans to continue, she said on Thursday: Spend SNAP funds early, when she gets them, and invest in foods that can be frozen or shelved for the long haul.
“I’m not quite out of the woods, mentally,” Ms. Mayne said, adding, “I think I’m still in the mentality of starvation.”
Larry Robinson, 61, of Orlando, Fla., expected to receive his SNAP benefits on Sunday. He checked his account that day — and the next and the next. As of Thursday, he said, his funds still had not arrived.
Mr. Robinson was prepared. He and his roommate had a supply of food that could last them a couple of weeks. But he worried about the hardships the shutdown had caused, for everyone.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mr. Robinson said. “This is sad.”
The shutdown affected not only those who buy food but also those who sell it.
Julia Asherman, 39, a farmer in Jeffersonville, Ga., grows carrots, peppers, cabbage and kale, among other things. She also relies on SNAP to afford the things she cannot grow — pasta, coffee, milk — for herself and her 3-year-old son.
When those benefits paused this month, her customers — many of whom also relied on SNAP — cut back as well, hurting her income. She clung to the benefits left over from October, hoping to make them last until Thanksgiving.
The end of the shutdown has done little to ease her worries. As of Thursday, she was still waiting to see if her November funds would arrive.
“This has been a traumatic experience for the American people,” she said. “And even though the government is going to come back on, I don’t think that trauma is just going to be erased.”
Ginny Whitehouse and Kevin Williams contributed reporting.
Jacey Fortin covers a wide range of subjects for The Times, including extreme weather, court cases and state politics across the country.
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