State Human Services Commissioner Tony Lourey says SNAP — or Food Stamps — will be the first Minnesota program to be harmed if the federal government partial shutdown continues. Lourey says the federal government put up the money for February. He says, “[EBT] cards are going to filled at about January 20th, and so people are going to be running out of their assistance earlier in February than anticipated, but when we’re [the state] going to need to step in is around the 1st of March.”
Lourey says the program costs about 42 million dollars a month. Roughly 400 thousand Minnesotans are on SNAP and receive on average 110 dollars a month.
Excerpt from Tues a-m news conference: