‘It’s terrifying’: 1.4M Michiganders brace for loss of SNAP food assistance

Food assistance benefits for 1.4 million Michigan residents set to stop due to ongoing federal government shutdown
Benefit recipients say they’re stressed, scrambling to find alternatives as officials and advocates call for resolution
Food banks, low-cost grocers bracing for spike in demand: ‘People will go hungry without SNAP benefits’

After severe pregnancy complications forced Crystal McNac to stop working and go on bed rest, food assistance became a lifeline to help keep her other young children fed.

Her first payment through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) arrived last month, helping her make ends meet amid multiple hospitalizations.

But now, a looming pause in payments caused by the ongoing federal government shutdown has the 37-year-old Inkster mom frantically researching options from her hospital bed, wondering whether her kids — currently being cared for by a relative — will have enough food next month.

“I’m very stressed, I’m out of touch, I’m scared,” McNac told Bridge Michigan. “I’m going through every emotion I can possibly go through, because I don’t want my kids to be without while I’m in here and I can’t help.”

McNac is one of the roughly 1.4 million Michigan residents set to miss food assistance payments starting Saturday as the federal government, headed by President Donald Trump, nears a full month without funding.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the US Department of Agriculture, which runs the SNAP program, warned this week, confirming benefits will stop Nov. 1 unless lawmakers agree to a funding deal by then.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday joined a lawsuit aimed at forcing the USDA to continue benefits, and some lawmakers have endorsed using state funds in the interim. But options are limited, and time is tight.

Nearly 13% of households statewide would be impacted if the food assistance program grinds to a halt, leaving recipients scrambling for alternatives and charitable food organizations bracing for massive spikes in demand. In the last year, Michigan doled out about $3 billion in program funding.

Any pause is expected to be disruptive, but a prolonged lapse in SNAP benefits would be catastrophic, advocates said, especially with winter weather and the holiday season on the horizon.

“The need was already great,” said AJ Fossel, executive director of the Community Food Club, a Grand Rapids nonprofit grocery store serving low-income individuals and families.

“Philanthropy and charitable food cannot fill that gap, so people will go hungry without SNAP benefits,” she continued. “It’s just the reality of the work that we’re doing.”

A broad impact

Over the past three years, Michiganders that qualified for SNAP due to financial hardships received average payments of $191 per month, according to state data. Funds are loaded onto electronic benefit transfer cards and can be used to purchase food at grocery stores, farmers markets or other participating retailers.

In Michigan, 51% of participating households have at least one person with a disability, and 36% have older adults, according to the state health department. An estimated 548,038 children benefit from SNAP, as do nearly 40,000 veterans.

A pause in SNAP payments would impact every corner of the state, from populous Wayne County, where nearly 1 in 4 residents received an average of $201 per month over the past three years, to rural Gogebic County in the Upper Peninsula, where nearly 1 in 5 residents received an average of $181 per month.

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While it is expected recipients would get missed payments retroactively once the federal program resumes, most people on SNAP don’t have the emergency savings needed to backfill their grocery budgets, said Julie Cassidy, senior policy analyst with the Michigan League for Public Policy.

That means low-income households could get behind on other bills, neglect chronic health conditions or go hungry, Cassidy said, adding that impacted children could also have a harder time keeping up in school.

“This is absolutely going to have an impact on them that could ripple out far beyond access to food,” she said. “We often see parents going without everything they need just to make sure their children have enough … it’s going to force families to make really tough choices between food and all the other basic necessities.”

In Flint, 78-year-old Paulette Green lives alone and has been using her $98 monthly allotment in food assistance to get deliveries through a local mobile market that partners with farmers to provide her fresh produce.

That’s a valuable service for Green, who said she was recently diagnosed with chronic kidney disease stemming from diabetes, health conditions that have made her wary of in-person shopping.

But with food assistance set to pause, Green said she’ll have to stop those grocery deliveries while making other plans “in case things go bad.”

“’I’m good at finance,” she said, noting her primary sources of income are from Social Security and a small pension stipend from her ex-husband, “but I’m starting to get in a hole, and it’s getting scary at my age.”

‘I don’t want to lose what I have’

Kalamazoo resident Mary Ann Skartsiaris, 55, misses the freedom of going to work, getting a paycheck, going on spontaneous road trips or even out to eat with family and friends.

Debilitating fibromyalgia and severe allergic reactions to common spices, nightshade vegetables and dairy products took those little joys from her. Federal benefits have helped her rebuild her life, from finding an affordable apartment to ensuring she has food she can safely eat in the pantry, she said.

“Without this, I literally cannot eat — by the time that it comes around, my cupboards are almost completely bare,” she said of her monthly benefit check. “I cannot buy Tic-Tacs without going, ‘Well, I can get them at the Dollar Store a little cheaper than that, so I have to wait until I get there.’”

SNAP has also allowed Skartsiaris, who doesn’t have a car, to order groceries to her door, helping her avoid the expense of public transportation or an Uber and physical pain triggered by long walks through grocery stores.

Despite her strict budgeting, the monthly benefits are barely enough to make ends meet, and she’s not sure how she’ll make it through a prolonged pause in the SNAP payments, Skartsiaris told Bridge.

“It’s hard enough having to rely on the government and not be self-sufficient like I want to be. It’s really hard when those options are gone,” she said. “It’s terrifying, and I don’t want to lose what I have, and I don’t know what else to do.”

Shoppers browse shelves at the Elmwood Blessing Box in Westland, Michigan, on Wednesday, October 29, 2025. — Michigan food pantries say they’re already seeing more traffic ahead of an expected pause in federal food benefits. (Brayan Gutierrez for Bridge Michigan)

For people with disabilities, who oftentimes already face higher living costs and employment barriers, “losing food support will only deepen hardship,” said Kendra Davenport, president and CEO of the nonprofit Easterseals, whose affiliates in Michigan and other states work with the disabled, seniors and veterans.

In Okemos, retired social worker Paul Zang, 74, acts as a pro bono representative payee for a 64-year-old mentally disabled man, helping him manage his personal finances. The man’s life, Zang said, is highly dependent on government assistance — his sole income is a monthly $927 Supplemental Security Income check.

After expenses, the man is left with a $90 weekly allowance for personal expenses — he needs a new vacuum cleaner, Zang said, and money for clothing and toiletries. SNAP gives the man an additional $267 monthly stipend for food, and without it, Zang worries his client will run out of funds.

“I don’t think he can fully grasp the consequences of losing SNAP,” Zang said. “He’s going to have to figure out how to replace that with the little bit of allowance that he currently has.”

Are there other options?

The looming delay in SNAP benefits stems from the nearly month-long federal government shutdown in Washington, where partisan gridlock has prevented lawmakers from passing a budget to fund government operations since Oct. 1.

Democratic officials and other observers have questioned why the Trump administration isn’t planning to use roughly $6 billion in contingency funds previously approved by Congress to keep SNAP running beyond Saturday.

Federal officials contend those reserves can’t be used as a shutdown stopgap, and even if it was possible, the money wouldn’t last long: The government spends more than $8 billion on the program each month.

In a memo issued this week, the USDA said the contingency fund is “not available” to support regular SNAP benefits, “because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists.” Instead, the agency said, the money should be reserved for other contingencies, such as food assistance after natural disasters.

Past administrations have reached a different conclusion, including in 2019, when Trump’s USDA told states it would make “limited funding” from the reserves available for SNAP during a government shutdown.

Six Michigan Democrats in Congress joined colleagues this week in calling on the USDA to use that money. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday led a group of 21 Democratic governors in a letter asking Trump to do the same. Nessel and other attorneys general sued, arguing the administration doesn’t have authority to leave contingency funds on the table.

“If the reality of 42 million Americans going hungry, including 1.4 million Michiganders, isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is,” Nessel said, calling the plan to hold back emergency reserves “cruel, inhumane, and illegal.”

US Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Caledonia, told constituents during a virtual town hall last week that the best case scenario is to reopen the government, calling the SNAP uncertainty “unsustainable.”

“We need to have the government back open again to support these important things,” Moolenaar said. “I want to see this government open, and I want to make sure that people receive their paychecks and the assistance they need.”

Though SNAP is a federal program, some Michigan lawmakers have proposed chipping in state dollars to maintain food access. A group of House Democrats proposed a $900 million emergency budget supplemental to temporarily continue the SNAP program, as well as an additional $24 million for the Food Bank Council of Michigan and food pantry programs around the state.

There’s little time for action in the Legislature, however, and there would be a considerable cost: States that choose to fund SNAP themselves will not be reimbursed by the federal government, according to the USDA memo.

“The SNAP benefits in any given month in Michigan are between $200 and $300 million,” said Cassidy of the Michigan League for Public Policy. “The state of Michigan doesn’t just have that kind of money sitting around waiting to be spent.”