\t\t\t\t\tOverview:<\/p>\n
The federal government shutdown has left 3.5 million Texans, including 1.7 million children, without their monthly SNAP benefits, causing many to ration food and prepare to skip meals. The program offers critical federal food assistance to the nation’s poorest citizens, and without it, many Texans are struggling to make ends meet. The longest government shutdown on record has left lawmakers in a stalemate, leaving many wondering when or how they will receive their benefits. Without the safety net designed to help the country’s poorest put food on the table, many are turning to each other for help.<\/p>\n
![\"AJ](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762563497_131_20251102-Snap-Recipients-HM-02-scaled.jpg\")
AJ Wark, 21, a maritime studies student at Texas A&M University at Galveston, poses on campus on Nov. 2, 2025. Wark, who depends on SNAP benefits, said she has had difficulty saving money for essential needs. \u201cA lot of students are able to get a meal plan, but there are students who weren\u2019t approved for loans. Now that SNAP is being cut off, it\u2019s been kind of tough for a lot of us,\u201d she said.\u00a0Hope Mora for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
AJ Wark, a third-year maritime studies student at Texas A&M University at Galveston, started the fall semester on food stamps. In May, her parents kicked her out of their home after she came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, taking away her car and money that helped pay for textbooks and other essentials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now that her food stamp account sits empty, the 21-year-old has yet another expense to worry about \u2014 how to pay for her next meal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are these social safety nets that are supposed to be in place to help stay stable, but now we\u2019re seeing them taken away,\u201d Wark said. \u201cI never thought this would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wark is among 3.5 million Texans \u2014 including 1.7 million children \u2014 on the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, who have become political collateral as the country\u2019s leaders waffle over how to fund benefits for the month of November.<\/p>\n
On Friday, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to fund SNAP after states were notified\u00a0last month that the USDA wouldn\u2019t<\/a>\u00a0be able to pay out benefits because the federal government is shut down. Although the president suggested on\u00a0social media Tuesday<\/a>\u00a0that SNAP wouldn\u2019t be funded until the government reopens, USDA\u00a0has said it will pay at most half<\/a>\u00a0of what people would typically receive for the month.<\/p>\n As of Wednesday, Texans still haven\u2019t seen any November SNAP benefits, which could take days to roll out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just numbers,\u201d Wark said. \u201cIt\u2019s actual people with lives, people with mouths\u2026 it\u2019s people who have jobs\u2026who have children, and I think that really gets lost on politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n In SNAP\u2019s 60-year history, recipients \u2014 40 million of them today \u2014 have never gone without a monthly payment. Lawmakers in Congress have been locked in a stalemate since Oct. 1, causing the longest government shutdown on record. Democrats are demanding that Congress address expiring health insurance subsidies and Republicans are refusing to negotiate until the government reopens.\u00a0<\/p>\n SNAP offers critical federal food assistance to the nation\u2019s poorest citizens, and although many have been bracing for the program\u2019s pause, Democrats in the state Legislature warned Gov.\u00a0Greg Abbott<\/a>\u00a0of the long-term effects on the state: \u201cSuspending federal benefits could intensify an already critical demand for food assistance across Texas,\u201d senators wrote in a\u00a0letter to Abbott<\/a>\u00a0last week, urging him to allocate state funds to support SNAP recipients.<\/p>\n Without the safety net designed to help the country\u2019s poorest put food on the table, many Texans, whose situations range from single parents trying to make ends meet to college students like Wark, were starting to ration food and preparing to skip meals.<\/p>\n A\u00a0petition<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Change.org<\/a>\u00a0demanding that Congress pause lawmakers\u2019 salaries and benefits throughout the shutdown has received more than 150,000 signatures. The petition says that \u201cGovernment shutdowns are not just political games \u2014 they disrupt lives, harm communities, and erode public trust.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not the only student on campus who\u2019s going to be impacted\u201d<\/p>\n Wark usually gets her SNAP payments on the second day of the month, and as of Tuesday, her Lone Star Card was empty. On top of stressing about exams and homework, Wark is now worried about how she\u2019s going to pay for food.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Wark first learned that SNAP was being paused, \u201cthe first thing that I started doing was crunching numbers in my head to try to figure out how I would make it work, where I could go for food, what I could hold off on,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wark is a financial aid adviser for students on campus, but working just 20 hours a week for $10 an hour isn\u2019t enough to cover everything \u2014 especially now that her parents no longer financially support her. Wark, who grew up in Grandbury, southwest of Fort Worth, said SNAP helped her maintain a balanced diet during her transition to being independent.<\/p>\n \u201cSNAP has been the difference between canned chicken, instant rice and Pop Tarts, to things like vegetables and actual meats,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wark loves mushrooms and tries to put them on any dish she can. \u201cI\u2019ll put mushrooms in anything, tacos, mushrooms, you name it,\u201d she said. But canned foods are cheaper, so until SNAP resumes, she\u2019s planning to rely mostly on canned meats and vegetables.\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019s also planning to visit her campus\u2019 food pantry more often, which she\u2019s noticed has been lower on food than before.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also kind of worried, specifically for the food pantry because I\u2019m sure that I\u2019m not the only student on campus who\u2019s going to be impacted by this,\u201d said Wark.<\/p>\n To make up for the food stamps she\u2019s not getting this month, she\u2019s planning to cut out some of the hygiene products she usually purchases, like shaving products. Since she\u2019s moved out of her house, she\u2019s been needing household items such as clothing hangers \u2014 but she said those things can wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just kind of whatever I can take, you know,\u201d Wark said. \u201cWhatever I can put in my mouth, pretty much at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re families who are just trying to feed our kids\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Jones is a 44-year-old mother of two teenagers in Liberty County. A seamstress by trade, she has struggled to make ends meet for more than a decade since Hurricane Ike hampered her small business in 2008. She has relied on food stamps to feed her family in a local economy with few jobs that fit her skills.\u00a0She has been staring down a month of hunger while news reports go back and forth on when or how she will get her benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not bums sitting around getting handouts,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe\u2019re families who are just trying to feed our kids and they\u2019re making it extraordinarily hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones has been out of the traditional work force for more than a decade. She has filled out applications for any local job that would take someone with limited experience, but even being a janitor or Walmart shopper have been out of reach. Recently, she began running deliveries for a local florist, which helps a little.<\/p>\n Her story isn\u2019t unique.<\/p>\n Liberty County, which had about 108,000 residents in 2023, sits between Houston and Beaumont. More than half of Liberty County\u2019s households are either impoverished or considered working poor, according to the\u00a0United for ALICE<\/a>.<\/p>\n For most of Liberty County\u2019s existence, the primary industry has been agriculture, according to County Judge\u00a0Jay Knight.<\/a>\u00a0But that has been changing, and he\u2019s trying to bring new jobs into his county, but that work is slow.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of our people who live in Liberty County go out of county to work,\u201d Knight said. \u201cThey go to the Houston market or to the refineries and oil companies down south of our county.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones can\u2019t do that. Her 2004 Mazda that shakes when she drives faster than 60 mph wouldn\u2019t make it far from home. Plus, the jobs she could get to wouldn\u2019t pay enough to warrant burning gas. To move out of Liberty County would mean to leave her village and her rent controlled housing and it wouldn\u2019t guarantee employment.<\/p>\n It is difficult to stock up on food with a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old. So when the SNAP payment didn\u2019t arrive on Saturday, Jones and thousands\u00a0of her neighbors<\/a>\u00a0turned to each other for help. She\u00a0had been working out a meal sharing program with her neighbors and they have discussed ride-sharing to food banks.<\/p>\n Jones built a career making costumes, clothes and quilts. But in 2008, life hit hard and fast. She was dealing with a tough pregnancy with complications when Hurricane Ike wrecked many East Texas communities \u2014 and took her customer base and business with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Seeking SNAP benefits was supposed to be a short term solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was so determined. I wasn\u2019t going to abandon [my business], I was not going to drop it,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut the economy just suddenly got worse, especially for things that people don\u2019t necessarily need, those luxury items.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones then became the primary caregiver for her mother and took custody of her niece. To save money, she kept the kids home from day care. But that meant she had to stay home, too. She took whatever odd sewing or crafting jobs that came her way.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762563497_978_YourTexasBenefits.png\")
A screenshot of AJ Wark\u2019s Lone Star benefits page.\u00a0Courtesy of AJ Wark<\/p>\n