10/28/2025
The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) said the ongoing government shutdown will possibly affect Oklahomans who use other government assistance programs, alongside those who use SNAP benefits.
According to OICA, about one in six Oklahomans are SNAP benefit recipients with two-thirds of that group having children. They said that 42 percent of those families on SNAP are working class.
The shutdown may also affect free school lunch programs as well with federal money not coming in, local school districts may be forced to make up the difference.
“Be prepared. Understand that if you are on SNAP come Saturday, benefits are not going to be there. So what you need to do is go out and spend what SNAP dollars you have on shelf-stable items to get you through,” said Jay Gumm with OICA. “There are food banks in the state — we have them on our website at OICA.org. If you go and look at our CEO’s column, it'll have those websites for the food banks in the state. Some restaurants have already stated that they are going to provide free restaurant meals for those who need it. There’s going to be resources; people are stepping up.” “Early in this shutdown, the USDA said they had a contingency fund that they would use for this. They have since flip flopped on that…and are now saying that the contingency fund that is sitting there is not going to be used for funding SNAP during the shutdown,” said Gumm. “They have done some parsing of words compared to where they are towards the end of the shutdown and that’s trifling as well. When a federal agency says, ‘We’re going to help, we’ve got some money to do that with’ and then in turn say, ‘Nope, we can’t use that in this case.’”
The USDA said the funds are not legally available. They posted on their website, "Bottom liner, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
