On the eve of federal SNAP benefits hitting people’s accounts, Louisiana is jumping in to fill the gap for the 1 in 5 state residents who use the program, but only for some of them.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The federal food assistance benefits of more than 40 million people are uncertain after a pair of federal rulings Friday. Louisiana is tied with Oregon for the second highest per capita SNAP recipient rate in the country. There, the Republican-controlled legislature created its own food assistance program from its rainy day fund in case SNAP benefits stalled. But as member station WRKF’s Brooke Thorington reports from Baton Rouge, not everyone will see those funds next month.
BROOKE THORINGTON, BYLINE: Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, says the state is acting with compassion and reason in the face of the federal government shutdown and the lapse of funding for SNAP.
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JEFF LANDRY: When you’re not fiscally responsible, when you don’t understand how to ensure that you have money for a rainy day, then you can’t act when it rains.
THORINGTON: While some states are offering assistance by sending funds to local food banks, Louisiana will prop up SNAP for the month of November using 150 million from the state’s $2.7 billion rainy day fund. Recipients will receive that directly on their benefit cards. As he announced the stopgap funding, Landry didn’t miss an opportunity to place the blame on Democrats in Washington.
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LANDRY: Understand that what we’re doing is historic. It has never been done. We’ve never had to be – placed in this situation. And any mistake that we make is Chuck Schumer’s fault.
THORINGTON: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says he’ll support short-term bills to fund SNAP proposed by both parties. But in Louisiana’s short-term funding measure, there’s a catch. Only SNAP beneficiaries who are elderly, disabled or have children in the home will receive funds for November. Landry says in an interview on a local TV station that others will be excluded.
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LANDRY: But there’s going to be about 53,000 people who won’t have their cards loaded. Those are able-bodied people that we need to send to food banks.
THORINGTON: Leaving some recipients without those benefits is a restrictive approach to the program, but Louisiana is still an outlier in the Southeast when it comes to filling the gap for food assistance. Residents of Southern states like Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi will go without any government food assistance for now. Louisiana is among the first states to announce it’s using state funds towards SNAP. Many food banks, including those in Louisiana, called upon by the governor to step in are already facing shortages.
JAYNE WRIGHT-VELEZ: The food banks are critically low on inventory. We’ve already been assisting lots of federal workers who are working without pay.
THORINGTON: Jayne Wright-Velez is the executive director of the Food Bank of Central Louisiana.
WRIGHT-VELEZ: For every meal that we provide, SNAP provides nine. And so that’s just an illustration of scale for you.
THORINGTON: Lawmakers approved the emergency funding in a near unanimous vote this week. State Senate President Cameron Henry says that widespread support across party lines shows how SNAP benefits are received by a broad cross section of the state.
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CAMERON HENRY: So that our friends in D.C. can appreciate what we’re doing. Those individuals are not all white or Black, and they’re not all Republican or Democrat. And how do I know that? ‘Cause look at who they elected. Regina Barrow has 29,000 beneficiaries…
THORINGTON: He lists state lawmakers from both parties with thousands of SNAP recipients in each of their districts.
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HENRY: So you’re – try not to put Ds and Rs on this. It ain’t going work ’cause their representatives show you that.
THORINGTON: And while the country awaits the shutdown to end, Henry says the state will continue to meet the needs of the most vulnerable SNAP recipients.
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HENRY: Until D.C. gets organized, straight, sane, whatever you want to call it, their problems have now become ours. That’s fine. That’s why we’re elected, and we’ll fix them.
THORINGTON: For NPR, I’m Brooke Thorington in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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