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Public schools were already sounding the alarm that if the government shutdown drags into next month, districts across the country may not have the money to feed hungry schoolchildren who come from low-income families. And now, even more of them will go hungry next month when more than 41 million people lose access to the country’s most critical food benefit.
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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is administered by the Department of Agriculture, is normally funded to the tune of $8 billion monthly through appropriations, the budget for federal spending that Congress is supposed to negotiate and pass for each fiscal year.
But this year, the ongoing government shutdown has brought that to a halt.
