The approach that USDA announced on January 8 to fund SNAP in February will not be available for March benefits. A month from now, and possibly sooner, USDA will need to inform states about whether sufficient funding is available for March. If it isn't, USDA will need to instruct states on how to implement a cut in SNAP benefits.
[6] At that time, less than $3 billion in funding will likely be available in March because some of the "contingency reserve" will probably need to be used in February, as discussed above.
SNAP benefits currently amount to about $4.8 billion a month,
[7] so even the full $3 billion reserve could not fully fund March benefits. If USDA determines it has a shortfall of approximately $1.8 billion and directs that the partial funding be spread evenly across all 19 million SNAP households, the average cut per household would be at least $90, or close to 40 percent. If USDA needs to tap the contingency reserve in February, the cuts required for March would be larger.
Moreover, some households would see substantially larger cuts if the Administration either protected some households but not others from cuts, or if it shut down the entire program after the amount left in the contingency reserve is redeemed in March, which would leave some households with no SNAP benefits at all if their date to receive benefits comes after the reserve is depleted (most states issue benefits to different households on different days of the month).
