‘The well has run dry’: 43 million Americas set to miss food stamps payments as Trump’s USDA blames Democrats
Nearly 42 million Americans and their families who rely on federal food assistance will not receive aid on November 1 without urgent funding from Congress, according to Donald Trump’s administration.
A notice on the Department of Agriculture’s website claims “the well has run dry” for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — and explicitly blames Senate Democrats for the ongoing impasse in Congress over a temporary funding measure that would end the federal government shutdown, which is now stretching into a fifth week.
The message, echoing the recent wave of partisan attacks on government websites, states “there will be no benefits” November 1.
The Trump administration also does not plan to tap into billions of dollars in emergency funds to keep benefits running into next month — marking a reversal from the USDA’s position just weeks earlier. That contingency plan, which was issued last month, said the agency would rely on a multi-year contingency plan to continue supporting SNAP. It has now been removed from the USDA’s website.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” according to the latest notice. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”
SNAP funds, which are distributed by the federal government to states each month, were administered through October because funding for the program was allocated before the shutdown began October 1.
But in a letter October 10, the program’s acting administrator Ronald Ward claimed that benefits for funding would stop flowing to states if the shutdown continued past the end of the month.
“As stated in our lapse of appropriation correspondence dated October 1, 2025, SNAP has funding available for benefits and operations through the month of October,” he wrote. “However, if the current lapse in appropriations continues, there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the nation.”
SNAP recipients receive roughly $188 per person per month, or about $6 per day. Those funds are administered on prepaid cards that can be used for grocery store staples.
The program provides roughly nine meals for every one meal provided by a food pantry, according to advocates.
Food banks across the country were already reporting greater demands for food assistance than what they saw even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Community food pantries were already stretched thin from years of rising food costs and growing food insecurity, with more than 47 million Americans at some point within the last year not having enough food to eat or knowing where their next meal is coming from, according to the USDA’s most recent report.
Now they’re bracing for impact as millions of people stand to lose critical benefits that keep families out of hunger.
Feeding America, which supports more than 200 food banks across the country, called on USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and officials to “use all available avenues to protect families impacted by the ongoing shutdown, without delay.”
“We are not alone in our understanding that families everywhere are on the brink of, or have already been forced to make, impossible choices between food and other necessities like housing and health care,” Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said in a statement.
