Nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians are currently without the food assistance money on which they rely. Monday, in response to a pair of court rulings last week, President Donald Trump announced that partial payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are on the way. It’s unclear, however, when that money for SNAP beneficiaries in North Carolina will arrive.
Should the administration comply with the U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell’s deadline, it could be as soon as Wednesday. But Trump’s plan includes the use of emergency funds to pay for only “50% of eligible households’ current allotments.” It does not allow for any recipients to receive full November payments.
Currently, SNAP beneficiaries are still without a reload of funds on their EBT cards for the month of November, a serious and immediate blow to North Carolina families’ ability to afford groceries. When money does come through, it will be greatly reduced.
Foodbanks were already serving record numbers across the state this fall. Now, 700,000 more NC households won’t be able to afford the grocery staples they need. Hunger is expected to spike severely, but a newfound lack of federal data collection will make understanding the impact difficult.
“We don’t have a superhero cape big enough to cover this crisis that the federal government has created,” said Tina Postel, CEO of Nourish Up, a network of emergency food pantries in Charlotte.
“We are bracing for the absolute worst. We are ordering as much food as we possibly can. We are treating this as a pandemic-level crisis.”
This marks the first time in the history of the SNAP that funding has been allowed to run out. The web of consequences is likely to be severe and far-reaching, even if partial payments arrive as soon as possible.
SNAP lapse court challenge
In the midst of a government shutdown, Trump initially refused to tap emergency funds to pay for SNAP benefits. But two simultaneous lawsuits — one filed jointly by NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson — required him to produce a plan to fund SNAP by today. He announced at midday Monday his intention to fund half of the benefits for November.
It remains to be seen how quickly the reduced November dollars will make their way into wallets.
“We’re not finished, but this is a major step toward making sure 16 million kids don’t go hungry,” Jackson wrote on social media after Friday’s court rulings.
For now, though, the money isn’t there. SNAP beneficiaries can still use whatever October money is leftover on their cards, but await guidance on when they will be able to load their partial November benefits.
Should the shutdown extend into December, it is unclear whether the Trump administration will allow a complete lapse to occur, provide another partial payment, or fully fund the program. It also remains to be seen whether once the government is back open, these November payments will ever be provided in full.
Public health and a lack of data
The 50% reduction in SNAP benefits is cause for major public health concern.
Most NC SNAP beneficiaries are taking care of an elderly person, a child or a disabled person, according to Molly De Marco, a public health professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. Without enough to eat, people become unproductive, distracted and tired in the workplace, at school and at home. People are more likely to experience chronic conditions, fatigue and mental health issues.
“Mental health issues are associated with food insecurity, with not knowing if you’re going to be able to stretch your dollars enough to feed your family,” De Marco said.
“In the long term, we might see a rise in evictions. SNAP benefits are income support. If you have funds for food, you can use other funds to pay for utilities and rent and mortgage. We’re more likely to see people getting their water shut off, or their lights.”
Later this month, the country will celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that centers around a bountiful dinner table. Now, that tradition might be completely out of reach for many.
Thanks to changes handed down by the Trump administration, it will be difficult to measure the scope of existing food insecurity and evaluate the effect of the lapse in SNAP benefits. The USDA will no longer produce Household Food Security Report, calling it nothing “more than subjective, liberal fodder.”
“The federal government has eliminated the collection of food insecurity data,” De Marco said. “We’re not going to be able to see the effect of this on a federal level.”
The existing food insecurity crisis
Even before this reduction in SNAP dollars, foodbanks and pantries were serving record numbers across the state. Folks at those organizations say the surge is due to inflation, a lack of affordable housing, a job slump and stagnant wages. People are being forced to choose between paying for rent or health care or groceries.
MANNA Foodbank, which serves 16 counties in Western North Carolina, is serving nearly 200,000 people per month. That’s a record for the organization.
Nourish Up, Postel’s chain of 40 pantries across Charlotte, says she’s seen a 115% increase in usage over the last four years. She served enough people to fill the Panthers’ stadium twice in 2024.
The Wilmington branch of the Foodbank of Central and Eastern North Carolina was serving about 50 families per week over the summer. This fall, that has doubled, according to Emily Kraft, spokesperson for the foodbank. So many people were walking into the Raleigh branch in search of help this October that the foodbank has had to hire someone to help navigate residents to pantries.
“What keeps me up at night is the people experiencing food insecurity for the first time,” Postel said. “There is no shame in asking for help. I don’t want people to go to bed hungry. I don’t want seniors feeding pets instead of themselves. I don’t want parents going hungry while keeping food on the table for their children.”
For all the preparation these organizations are doing, there is only so much they can do. For every one meal a foodbank can provide, SNAP can provide nine.
“Charitable organizations are not equipped to meet the food demand that this lapse in funding will create,” said Micash Chrisman, spokesperson for MANNA Foodbank.
Grocery stores and local economies
Individuals and families aren’t the only ones facing a financial cliff. Grocery stores and markets rely on SNAP dollars to stay afloat as well.
This month, those businesses will be out millions of dollars. In some economically disadvantaged areas, as many as 30%-40% of grocery store customers have been using SNAP.
Grocery stores may have to increase prices to make up for the loss in sales, according to De Marco. Businesses might buy less from local farmers in order to cut costs. She also expects to see a rise in petty crime and shoplifting.
“People are going to do what they need to do to get food for their families,” De Marco said.
Every $1 of SNAP money generates an estimated $1.50 in local economic activity, according to the USDA.
“With SNAP fueling over 389,000 American jobs and creating over $20 billion in wages, the disruption to program funding may lead to reduced employee hours, perishable food losses, and declining sales for many community grocers across our nation,” reads a statement from the National Grocers Association.
Long-term cuts to SNAP
The reduction in November funding is not tied to the longer term cuts to SNAP coming from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, but it means that some of these issues won’t be going away.
The current SNAP reduction will severely deplete foodbanks at a time when they need to be building their stores in preparation for the cuts.
The program cuts, which are set to take effect after the midterm elections in 2026, would remove 1.5 million meals from NC tables every 30 days when the full effect comes into play, according to Chrisman. Families will lose $210 per month in Western North Carolina on average.
MANNA would have to double its distribution output to attempt to keep up with that need. Already, it is serving record numbers and preparing for a surge.
Those grocery stores that might spike prices in response to the current reduction might be forced to close altogether. Families might never get a chance to recover from this month before facing permanent reductions in support.
At the Foodbank for Central and Eastern North Carolina, staff is already dealing with other federal funding cuts.
“We’ve seen less food flow and we have less money to purchase food, because we are not being reimbursed for a lot of federal programs right now, which is where a lot of our funding comes from,” Kraft said.
“We are taking some money out of our reserves that we thankfully do have as an organization, and we’re using that to buy fresh produce and protein.”
The partial funding in November and existing federal funding cuts are draining reserves, leaving foodbanks with less bandwidth to meet the looming need.
For now, though, residents cannot renew November SNAP benefits, and when they do, they will only receive half of what they generally do. Folks are being forced into difficult choices about what they can afford. The health and wellbeing of people across North Carolina — and the country — is in limbo.
Editor’s note: This is a developing story and is being updated as the situation evolves.
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
