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Arizona will provide $1.8 million in aid to help low-income residents who rely on federal food assistance when their benefits are suspended by the Trump administration on Nov. 1. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that she would disburse $1.5 million in leftover American Rescue Plan Act COVID relief funds to Arizona food banks, and that she would put another $300,000 toward an emergency fresh food program called Food Bucks Now. The ARPA funds were initially allocated to the Arizona Department of Administration for essential government functions, according to Hobbs spokesman Christian Slater. “It is appalling that the Trump administration is choosing to withhold food from vulnerable Arizona families, using them as leverage in their political games,” Hobbs said in a statement. “The State of Arizona does not have the money to backfill the disastrous decisions being made by Washington Republicans, but I am taking every action possible to mitigate the damage done to everyday people in our state.” Hobbs’s announcement comes as the beginning of November is rapidly approaching, when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are usually disbursed onto cards that beneficiaries can use to purchase groceries. The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1 after Democrats refused to vote for a Republican stopgap funding bill unless it included a continuation of popular Affordable Care Act health insurance tax credits that are set to expire. Without those credits, health insurance premiums for plans on the ACA exchange are expected to skyrocket, but Republicans have falsely accused Democrats of holding out for free medical care for undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a Sept. 30 plan for the government shutdown that it would use $6 billion in a SNAP-specific contingency fund to cover most of the November benefits owed to the 42 million Americans who rely on the program. But on Oct. 24, the USDA reversed course, saying that it now believed using those funds would be illegal, even though they’ve been used for the same purpose during previous government shutdowns. Democrats in the Senate attempted to introduce a bill on Wednesday that would continue SNAP funding for November, but Republicans blocked it. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, also a Democrat, along with AGs from 20 other states, sued USDA on Tuesday with the goal of forcing the federal government to fund and release November benefits. But Mayes, who has joined other Democratic attorneys general in 29 lawsuits challenging the Trump administration this year, also called on Hobbs to take action. While Hobbs had said that neither the state nor food banks had the resources to feed the more than 800,000 people in Arizona who use SNAP each month, Mayes disagreed. The attorney general urged Hobbs and the Republican leaders of the state legislature to call a special session to allocate some of the $1.6 billion in the state’s rainy day fund to fill in for the suspension of benefits. Both Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro dismissed that idea in statements to the Arizona Mirror on Tuesday, saying that Mayes and Hobbs should instead push Arizona’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego to vote to reopen the government. “This is a step in the right direction, but Attorney General Mayes believes Democrats, Independents and Republicans need to come together and solve this looming crisis,” Richie Taylor, a spokesman for Mayes, said in a statement about Hobbs’s $1.8 million aid plan. “Attorney General Mayes is focused on winning the lawsuit she filed yesterday to force the federal government to pay SNAP benefits and prevent mass hunger across the nation.” Hobbs acknowledged in her announcement that the $1.8 million in ARPA funds was only a fraction of the $150 million in food assistance that the federal government usually provides each month to Arizonans who use SNAP. And the $300,000 going to the Food Bucks Now program will be portioned among SNAP families, giving each a voucher of around $30 to each family to purchase fresh produce at participating farmer’s markets and grocery stores. Hobbs is also asking Arizonans to help their neighbors by donating to or volunteering through the Arizona Food bank Network and for grocery stores and others in the food industry to donate food, resources and expertise to help ensure people don’t go hungry. An estimated 923,400 people in the Grand Canyon State received SNAP benefits last year, about 12% of the population, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Around 77% of those recipients live below the poverty line. More than 40% of Arizonans who receive SNAP are members of working families, 68% are in families with children and almost 29% are in families that include older adults or people with disabilities. In the 2022 fiscal year, Arizona families enrolled in SNAP received an average of $312 in monthly benefits. “On behalf of our member food banks, we’re grateful for this investment and the state’s partnership in meeting the expected surge in demand for emergency food assistance,” April Bradham, president and CEO of the Arizona Food Bank Network said in a statement. “Food banks are already serving an unprecedented number of more than 770,000 people each month so the added support to serve even more Arizonans during this time is deeply needed and appreciated. We are grateful to the State and all the donors who can give to their local food banks during this time.”
