Democratic legislators including Gov. Maura Healey, Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern slammed President Donald Trump on Friday, saying he and the “Republican shutdown” are halting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits starting Nov. 1 that are used by more than 1 million Massachusetts residents.
“President Trump has chosen to stop all SNAP benefits to Americans starting next week,” Healey said at a press conference. “Leadership is a choice, and sadly, President Trump has chosen to take away food from people all around this country.”
She said that of the 1 million Bay staters — thousands of whom live in Hampshire and Franklin counties — who will lose benefits, 32% are children, 31% are people with disabilities and 26% are seniors. Nationally, some 42 million Americans across the country are expected to lose benefits.
Healey says Trump’s decision is “unprecedented,” noting that during previous federal shutdowns, every other U.S. president continued SNAP benefits.
She said Trump is making a choice that can be changed because there is a contingency fund in Washington with billions of dollars that can be used to make these funds available and “relieve the anxiety that so many people are experiencing.”
“This is a choice,” McGovern said in a statement. “The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has significant money set aside in multi-year contingency funding authorized by Congress for exactly this kind of a situation. Republicans are shutting down SNAP to create political leverage by inflicting pain on working families.”
The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that about $5 billion is available in the contingency fund and is calling on the administration to use that for partial benefits in November, but it’s not clear if that’s being seriously discussed.
Forty-six of the 47 Democrats in the U.S. Senate sent a letter Thursday to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins calling on her to release the contingency money. The USDA has not answered questions about whether those funds might be tapped.
The decision to halt SNAP payments next month comes in the wake of passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer, which the governor called “the largest cut to food assistance in this country’s history.” Changes from the act will result in more than 150,000 Massachusetts residents having their SNAP benefits reduced or eliminated in the future. A release from Healey says the OBBBA changes, “impose burdensome requirements on SNAP recipients that are designed to reduce their benefits or remove them from the program altogether.”
At that time, Healey created an Anti-Hunger Task Force to advise her administration and produce recommendations for how to mitigate against cuts to SNAP and other food assistance programs.
Additionally, in September, the Trump administration canceled the government’s annual report measuring household food insecurity, reported by The New York Times.
According to the organization USAFacts, more than 1 million Massachusetts residents, or 15.6%, received monthly SNAP benefits in fiscal year 2024, greater than the national average of 12.3%. According to a statewide survey from the Greater Boston Food Bank, in 2024, approximately one in three Massachusetts households were food insecure.
SNAP benefits run on a monthly basis, so the federal government shutdown that started at the beginning of this month, did not effect the October cycle.
“Next week, on Saturday, November 1st, over a million hungry people across our state will lose their food support,” Markey said at a press conference. “And this is at a time when the cost of living and the price of groceries are skyrocketing. Trump and the MAGA Republicans are demolishing the White House to build a gilded ballroom for their billionaire buddies.”
Markey’s press conference was held at Project Bread in Boston, an organization fighting food insecurity, specifically for non-white people, who it says are greater impacted by systematic discrimination.
“There’s no lack of food in the richest country in the world. This is a complete lack of conscience,” Markey said.
He was joined by members of several food security organizations, including Food Bank of Western Massachusetts Executive Director Andrew Morehouse.
“We can do it, we can end hunger,” Morehouse said. “But right now we can’t because the federal government doesn’t have our back.”
He said there are tens of thousands of food bank volunteers across the country that help individuals having to make “excruciating choices,” between paying for rent, medicine or putting food on their table. He said for each meal provided by every food bank across the country, the SNAP program provides nine.
He looked back to the Great Recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic, pointing out that the federal government supported people during those difficult times.
“We must insist upon the federal government, Congress, White House — approving the funds needed through the SNAP replenishment fund so that we can get SNAP benefits,” he said.
The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) is notifying SNAP recipients that unless there is a change, they will not receive their benefits next month. Additionally, DTA is notifying recipients of eligibility changes under the OBBBA.
More information about these changes is available at mass.gov/SNAPUpdates.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.