Virginians Grappling with Uncertainty Around Receiving SNAP Benefits

Virginia Beach, VA –  This week, SNAP is set to run out due to the ongoing Republican government shutdown. While Virginia has implemented a stopgap measure, more than 800,000 Virginians are now facing uncertainty about whether they’ll receive their SNAP benefits this month or next.

Working families are bracing for sharply higher insurance premiums, as Republicans in Congress still refuse to compromise, reopen the government, and permanently extend the health care tax credits. The month-long shutdown has seen veterans, parents, and seniors scramble to pull together a plan B while bracing for potential additional lost wages for furloughed government workers and rising costs for daily necessities. 

“This isn’t right. Military families rely on SNAP. Veterans rely on SNAP. Most of the parents I knew while I was on active duty had used WIC and SNAP at some point,” Alaina Neely, Navy Veteran, and mother of 2 children. “These are programs that benefit everyone, and no one should have to manage the stress and anxiety of wondering where their next meal will come from in the richest country in the world. It’s not right. Rep. Kiggans needs to go back to the drawing board and find common ground so that working families can get back to planning holidays, not bracing for more cuts.”

“Rep. Kiggans has continued to show her constituents that she is willing to pass the buck to our state electeds, rather than do her job in Congress,” said Emily Yeatts, Affordable Virginia Campaigns Director. “Working families have seen prices continue to go up month after month while essential programs continue to be cut, all so that billionaires can receive another tax break. Congressional Republicans shut the government down because they didn’t want to keep health care affordable by making tax credits permanent, and now people who didn’t think they had a dog in the fight are seeing what little they have be chipped away, day after day. It shouldn’t be this way, and Rep. Kiggans owes it to her constituents to fight for a more affordable life, at the doctors’ office, at the grocery store, and everywhere in between. Enough is enough.”