None of this is normal. Food-stamp benefits have never been cut like this in the current program’s more-than-60-year history. “It is a significant inflection point in the program’s history,” Christopher Bosso, a political scientist at Northeastern University who wrote a book on SNAP, told me. “Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.”

President Trump said he wouldn't pay food stamp benefits until government reopens, contradicting the USDA and potentially defying court order.

Posters have circulated on social media claiming several restaurant chains are offering free meals to SNAP recipients.

Has a New Jersey supermarket shuttered its windows ever since Nov. 1, 2025 when SNAP payments were cut off? No, that's not true: The store had not, at the time this was written, closed because of a delay in

The Trump administration's plan to partially fund SNAP benefits won't happen quickly. Why it matters: The Department of Agriculture expects states to need weeks, if not months, to distribute benefits to the millions of Americans on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),