ATLANTA — Reopening the government means food assistance would be paid in full to 1.4 million Georgians. Partial payments began going out on Tuesday.
We’re working to get the latest timing for when full SNAP benefits will be restored as government reopens, LIVE on Channel 2 Action News This Morning.
Channel 2’s Bryan Mims spoke with one person who relies on help and is so eager to get to the grocery store again. She told him she had to slim down her purchases.
With no funds on her SNAP card, Cheeka Scarborough said she’s surviving mostly on saltine crackers and sliced cheese.
She wants the politicians in Washington, DC, to know the hardship this shutdown has thrust on Americans like herself.
For Scarborough, her full monthly SNAP payment is $24.
“Twenty-four dollars a month. I got a raise this year from $23 to $24. Isn’t that wonderful?” Scarborough said.
At 76 years old, Scarborough said she draws income from Social Security and disability payments. And $24, she says, is not nothing. She can buy a dozen eggs, milk, a couple of pounds of meat, and produce.
“A great deal. A great deal. When I get my check, I am like, thank God it came through. I can buy some food that is desperately needed,” Scarborough said.
She normally gets SNAP funds put on her EBT card on the ninth of the month.
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The Georgia Department of Human Services said recipients who get their money between Nov. 1 and Nov. 11 should have received 65% of their payments on Tuesday.
For everyone after the 11th, partial funds are supposed to post on their normal payment day. But if the shutdown comes to an end, then full payments would go out.
Scarborough hasn’t received a SNAP payment since Oct. 9. So, what to do with no SNAP money?
“You don’t eat,” Scarborough told Mims. “You have to go without food.”
That means a daily diet of crackers and cheese. She said it would be easier to eat if she were younger.
“It’s hard because senior citizens, for which I am, we don’t go to school. We don’t get paid,” Scarborough said.
Now, she holds out hope that the shutdown will, at long last, end, and she’ll get her full $24.
It may not be much, but it sure means a lot.
Scarborough told Mims that she did not receive a partial payment on Tuesday. It’s unclear why.
Mims did email Ellen Brown, the spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Human Services. She said the agency will follow the guidance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
If the shutdown ends, the USDA will release all SNAP funds for the states to pay out.
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