Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. I held the newsletter later than usual today waiting for these court rulings. Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween! My kids are dressing up as a bat and a cat — very cute (and simple to execute)!
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Courts tell USDA to tap emergency funds to pay SNAP benefits
Two federal courts today ruled that USDA must tap into contingency funds to cover at least part of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for November amid the government shutdown — a huge relief for the more than 41 million Americans who rely on the program to afford groceries.
“A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ceasing to pay SNAP benefits during the U.S. government shutdown,” CNBC reported this afternoon. “The oral ruling by Judge Jack McConnell came a day before the administration was set to cut off those food stamp benefits.”
“McConnell, in his ruling, ordered the administration to use [contingency funds] to maintain at least some of the SNAP benefits normally paid. He also said the administration needed to examine whether other federal funds would be available to keep the program operating in the absence of a funding bill by Congress.”
As I’ve previously noted, the looming SNAP cliff is a huge deal. It’s been incredibly stressful for low-income families as we prepare to head into the holidays (amid high food costs, to boot), and it threatened to knock out a substantial chunk of the U.S. grocery business.
The Trump administration argued last week that USDA’s contingency fund — which is believed to be $6 billion — is for emergencies such as natural disasters and is not “legally available” to fund benefits during a shutdown. The fund is insufficient to cover November benefits in full — that would require more than $8 billion — but it’s possible states could pro-rate issuances to make it work in the interim.
In a separate case today, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston largely sided with nearly two dozen state attorneys general who sued USDA arguing the department was legally obligated to use SNAP contingency funds to pay for benefits during the lengthy government shutdown.
Talwani wrote in an order released this afternoon: “This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program.”
The judge gave USDA until Monday to tell the court whether it plans to partially issue SNAP benefits, or whether the administration will tap additional funds to fully fund November benefits.
The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the rulings. The Trump administration could decide to appeal.
What’s next: Even if USDA moves fast to partially or even fully fund SNAP benefits based on this ruling, this will all take time. SNAP benefits have never been issued on a pro-rated basis like this nationally. It’s all but certain that at least the first few days of SNAP benefit issuances will still be delayed. We should know more about the timeline in the next couple of days.
Shutdown scaries: Of course, this has already caused an enormous amount of stress for SNAP households. On Thursday, I caught up with Justin King, policy director at Propel, which runs the leading app for tracking government benefits (roughly 1 in 4 SNAP households use this app, so they have better data than just about anyone).
Propel last week surveyed app users and found that virtually all respondents surveyed were aware benefits were at risk — the vast majority had either heard about it from the app or on social media. About 1 in 4 respondents said they were prepared for a possible delay in benefits. The vast majority reported that benefits usually run out within three weeks and that they have no savings or extra income to cover these costs if November benefits are postponed.
More than 7 in 10 respondents reported feeling “extremely stressed” about their household’s ability to afford food in the coming weeks.
Propel this week launched $1 million to fund what they hope will be a $10 million fund to give smaller grocery benefit allotments to the highest-need families who use the app to track their benefits each month.
Fill the gap: As the SNAP cliff has drawn closer, I’ve been blown away by how many communities and businesses have stepped up to try and prepare for the disaster. There are a handful of states that pledged to use state funds to get at least some grocery benefits out, from Louisiana to the District of Columbia, even though USDA had said they would not be reimbursed for this. Everywhere I looked on social media, moms were organizing to raise money for food banks or to buy groceries for neighbors. Bobbie announced sharply discounted infant formula for parents on SNAP and is raising money to donate formula to food banks. Instacart this morning announced it will give SNAP families 50 percent off their next order (about $5 million in direct aid) and bolster donations to food banks. Gopuff recently announced it would offer $50 in free groceries for SNAP participants using the service, and DoorDash said it would waive delivery costs and fees.
(USDA, for its part, issued a warning Thursday saying that retailers were not legally allowed to give special discounts to SNAP participants.)
Of course, all of this is still a drop in the bucket compared to the $8 billion-plus that SNAP puts into shopping carts each month, but it also adds up to real help for real people.
Political posturing: While many have been scrambling to prepare for the worst, Republicans and Democrats are competing to pin blame on the other for all of this. It’s been somewhat surprising to see Republicans come to such strong defense of SNAP, a program they are often quick to criticize. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), for example, took to the New York Times this week with an opinion piece titled “No American Should Go to Bed Hungry.”
“The best solution would be to pass a clean funding bill to reopen the government in its entirety, but if that can’t be done, Congress at the very least needs to pass my bill to ensure food assistance continues uninterrupted,” Hawley writes. “Millions of Americans rely on food assistance just to get by.”
The Missouri Republican has introduced a bill that seeks to fund SNAP as a stand-alone measure — something Democrats have recently hinted they would support. But of course, allowing such a vote would remove SNAP as a pressure point in this broader political standoff.
Kicking the can: There is likely to be some sense of relief today about the courts stepping in on SNAP, but even if USDA uses the contingency funds right away, it’s not a long-term solution. If Congress doesn’t figure out how to reopen the government, we’ll be right back facing another cliff in a few weeks. What a dysfunctional nightmare!
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What I’m reading
Calley Means, a Kennedy adviser, has left the White House (New York Times). “Calley Means, an influential adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the brother of President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, quietly departed the White House at the end of his term as a special government employee about a month ago, he said in an interview on Wednesday night,” Benjamin Mueller reports. “For much of the last six months, Mr. Means has acted as the health secretary’s right hand, coordinating a major presidential commission report on what it described as the dire state of children’s health and sparring on television and online with vaccine scientists and doctors who objected to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to remake American medicine. The White House, where Mr. Means served as a special government employee, never formally announced his departure. And in the weeks since he left, Mr. Means has been cited in news reports as a White House adviser and aide to Mr. Kennedy in the course of lacerating hospitals, insurers and pharmaceutical companies for ‘making money off more sick patients.’”
Hearing for surgeon general nominee delayed after she went into labor (Washington Post). “The Senate health committee postponed a Thursday confirmation hearing for surgeon general nominee Casey Means after she went into labor,” report Lauren Weber and Rachel Roubein. “Means, a health products entrepreneur and popular online personality who left the medical mainstream, was set to be grilled on her past financial arrangements and how she would enact the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda. President Donald Trump in May nominated her to be surgeon general, the nation’s top doctor who commands a bully pulpit to offer medical advice and raise alarms about health threats, after withdrawing his first pick. Her scheduled confirmation hearing followed months of scrutiny about her credentials and medical views. According to a copy of her prepared remarks obtained by The Washington Post, Means was more than 40 weeks pregnant.”
The doctor who hates medicine (New York Times). “Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, graduated from the Stanford School of Medicine but abandoned her residency before completion, and has spent the past half-dozen years as a wellness influencer and tech company founder. She says she left medicine when she realized she was training to treat the complications of illness rather than the root causes,” writes Rachael Bedard in an opinion piece. “As the nation’s top doctor, the surgeon general is meant to be a trusted voice guiding Americans on matters concerning their health, bolstered by professional credentials and experience. Dr. Means, whose Senate hearings for the position were supposed to begin on Thursday, is a strange choice for the job. … She is an anti-expert expert, the doctor who believes doctors make people sicker. Her biography is typical of the leaders Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, has elevated. In his eyes, this paradoxical relationship to expertise is exactly what qualifies her for the job.”
Beyond Meat stock falls 78 percent following massive rally. Is the party over? (The Motley Fool). “Beyond Meat has been taking investors on a wild ride recently. The company’s share price rocketed higher after it gained the support of meme stock traders in response to reports of sky-high short interest. Some buyers poured into the stock in hopes of triggering a short squeeze, and the resulting trading action helped spur a massive run-up for the company’s valuation,” reports Keith Noonan. “The stock is now down approximately 42% over the last week of trading … Beyond Meat stock closed out Oct. 16’s daily trading session priced at $0.52 per share. Over the next week of trading, the company’s share price climbed as high as $7.69 — good for a gain of roughly 1,379%. But while the company’s share price rocketed higher, the gains appear to have been largely divorced from dramatic fundamental improvements for the company. Beyond Meat did announce an expanded distribution partnership with Walmart on Oct. 21 to increase the availability of its products in over 2,000 of the retailer’s locations, but it’s unlikely that the deal was the sole catalyst in the stock’s rally. Instead, the gains appear to have been largely driven by meme stock traders hoping to capitalize on a potentially massive short squeeze.”
The wines France tried to forget (Grape Rush). Chase Purdy writes about “how a Parisian wine enthusiast became the unlikely voice of a hybrid revival”…Léa De Cazo in 2023 founded ORJI, a small distribution company devoted mostly to hybrid wines. “She quickly upped the ante, hosting the city’s first all-hybrid wine fair in June 2024 at L’Orillon Bar in the Belleville area. ‘It was a total success,’ she said. ‘We had winemakers, wine shop workers, and journalists there. I think the public is completely ready.’ Europe’s warming climate and rising disease pressures are forcing growers to rethink the centuries-old covenant between grape and place. To outsiders, it might seem like a niche revival. But the turn toward hybrids is quietly reshaping Europe’s wine map.”
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