Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits may end for 40 million people nationwide due to the U.S. government shutdown, which at Final Call presstime was in its third week.
The SNAP Program provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budgets to make nutritious food more affordable. Some states have already issued warnings that benefits will end on November 1 if the shutdown continues.
The cuts would reportedly amount to an estimated $186 billion over the next decade. According to POLITICO, 25 of those states include California, Arkansas, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi and New Jersey.
“Things like this affect my family personally. Having these cut next month, we’re going to be in a very difficult situation,” said Terese Howard.
Ms. Howard works, much like many SNAP benefit recipients. She is an organizer with House Keys Action Network Denver, which advocates for housing rights. Her family of four, including two children, ages 1 and 4, relies on the supplemental program.
She feels that the bottom line is that society needs to rethink its priorities and consider whether fancy luxuries for the rich are more valuable than food and housing for everybody.
Part of the problem is that too much food in the U.S. is going to waste, while many go hungry, said Ms. Howard. “It happens on the grocery store level, restaurant level. … Redirecting what would-be waste to be food for people to eat, which is still perfectly good food to eat, and would be a huge part of that,” said Ms. Howard.
Donating excess food to food banks, making it accessible for people to take, and addressing the extreme imbalance of wealth and poverty in society are but a few solutions, she offered.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis has urged people to donate to food banks amid $120 million in cuts due to the shutdown. On October 22, he, Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera and community leaders announced new steps to protect state recipients by submitting two requests to the Joint Budget Committee.
One was to consider approval for up to $10 million in General Fund revenue to support food banks and pantries and another was to extend previously approved funding for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition access through November.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 30-40% of the food supply is never eaten. Feeding America reports that this food waste occurs when “ugly or oddly shaped fruits and vegetables” are tossed out, when sell-by or expiration dates near, there is overproduction at farms, or food gets damaged in transport.
“We have the riches in the society so that everybody could be fed and housed, but are choosing not to do that because we choose to let our society hoard the riches in the hands of few instead of spreading it out to everybody,” Ms. Howard told The Final Call.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad warned decades ago that the U.S. would not only not have enough jobs to furnish for White people, but also Black people.
He taught on the importance of economic independence for Black people as a solution to providing for themselves and not depending on the government to furnish needs. He understood the harsh economic realities that particularly impact Black people.
In His illuminating book, “Message To The Blackman in America,” on page 194, He writes, “The economic plight of the Black people of this land has so long been neglected by so-called leaders that even our own people have forgotten its basic importance.
Our economic position remains at the bottom of the ladder because of this ineffective leadership and because so many of our people ignore the basic rules of a healthy economic life. We fail to develop self-leadership in economics.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, addresses the problem of greed in his book “A Torchlight for America.”
“America also throws away the taxpayer’s money by commissioning valuable studies yet the government never really uses the results for the purpose of doing good. Though many of these studies are unpopular, they provide solutions that America could perhaps use to stop the ship of state from sinking,” he writes in the chapter titled, “Greed and Leadership’s State of Mind.”
“But this mindset of greed has permeated every aspect of society, blinding the rulership to the results of studies that they themselves have commissioned,” he continues. “Greed was in the very genesis of this country. Greed was at the root of the founding of this country. Greed was at the root of slavery, and it persists as a central problem to this date.”
He describes greed as a spiritual disease that represents a moral problem. Throughout the book, Minister Farrakhan provides solutions to America’s ongoing problems, including poverty and the health care and food crises.
Nation of Islam Student Southwest Regional Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad believes what’s happening with SNAP benefit cuts is part of the fulfillment of the prophecy that Minister Farrakhan presented to the people of America and the world in his monumental lecture, “The Unraveling of a Great Nation.” It was delivered as his keynote address for Saviours’ Day 2020, in Detroit, Michigan.
“We live today, not in a constitutional republic, nor a democracy, but an oligarchy, where those who are rich rule and those who are poor suffer,” stated Student Min. Abdul Haleem Muhammad.
“We have to bear witness that the solution has always been among us in the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad as taught and demonstrated by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,” he continued.
The Three-Year Economic Plan as well as Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint are solutions offered by both Divine Servants, Student Min. Abdul Haleem Muhammad explained.
“In the meantime, each one of us are going to have to learn how to eat to live one meal a day, one meal every other day, to stretch our food, and we’re going to have to get non-perishable food items such as navy beans and rice. We must have enough water to tide us over.
And, each one of us who can, depending on our location and the climate, begin to have an urban garden and to begin to connect with one another so that we may barter,” he recommended.
He referred to the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s books, “How to Eat to Live,” Books 1 and 2 for additional guidance.
Meanwhile, in addition to the SNAP benefits cuts, there are concerns about certain eligibility changes for the program, once known as “food stamps,” due to President Donald Trump’s passage of the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (H.R.1).
Some SNAP recipients who are able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) currently have work-related requirements in addition to the general SNAP work registration and employment and training requirements. SNAP law limits benefits for ABAWDs to three months out of a 36-month period, unless the participant meets the additional work-related requirements.
The new law raises the age for those who must meet these additional work requirements to 65 and younger, whereas they currently apply to 55-year-olds and younger.
In addition, it requires parents and household members to meet the additional work requirements (similar to those of someone without a dependent child) if the child is age 14 and older. Currently, those with a child under 18 are exempt from the requirements.
There is also exemptions for SNAP recipients who are Indians (Native Americans), Urban Indians, or California Indians from the additional work requirements. Further, the program will no longer be 100% federally funded, and in 2028, states will be required to pay 5% of the benefits.
According to U.S. & World News Report, some resources facing cuts, include the WIC program for pregnant women or those caring for children under age 6; school meal programs via the National School Lunch Program; the Emergency Food Assistance Program;
Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program which provides low-income seniors with coupons to buy eligible foods at farmers’ markets, roadside stands and community-supported agriculture; the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for seniors at least 60; Meals on Wheels America; and community food distribution sites.
The Food Research & Action Center expressed deep disappointment, saying the USDA quietly released an alarming memo on Oct. 3 that announced states have until November 1 to implement some of the most harmful SNAP cuts in decades.
“The new rules expand harsh time limits and work requirements on SNAP for adults up to age 65, including veterans, caregivers, parents of children 14 and older, unhoused, and young adults aging out of foster care,” stated its news release.
Families are struggling more than ever, food prices are 2.7 percent higher than last year, and the cost of housing, fuel and childcare continues to climb,” the release reads.
“These rules mean that a mother homeschooling her 15-year-old will lose benefits because caregiving doesn’t ‘count’ as work. A veteran with unpredictable shifts will lose benefits for failing to meet rigid reporting rules.
A grandmother who retired early to help raise her grandchild will be cut off because unpaid family care is not recognized. These are not people refusing to work, they are Americans doing their best in an economy that increasingly works against them,” continued the Food Research & Action Center.
According to Feeding America, 1 in 5 children (over 13 million) do not have enough food and over 50 million turned to food banks and pantries for help. Food Banks anticipate increased need as SNAP benefit cuts take effect.
“In the bigger picture, we’ve now got to get serious about acquiring land and controlling the logistical food supply chain from the field to the meal,” stated Student Min. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, reiterating what the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have taught for decades. (Final Call Staff contributed to this report.)