Thank you to our friends at Louisiana Food Policy Council for putting together this document. ASAN edits have been made to reflect specific data as it relates to Alabama.
Timeframe Definitions
- Short-term: The first days to 2–3 weeks of the shutdown.
- Longer-term: Roughly 1–2 months into the shutdown.
- Long-term: Beyond 2 months or in a prolonged shutdown.
Mandatory vs Discretionary Funding
Mandatory funding refers to programs that are required by law to provide benefits to all eligible recipients. Funding for these programs is generally automatic or pre-obligated through the annual budget or multi-year authorization, unlike discretionary programs, which rely on annual appropriations.
Programs with Mandatory Funding:
- SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
- School meal programs (NSLP, SBP)
- Certain nutrition programs like WIC (partially mandatory)
Discretionary funding requires annual appropriations, and programs are halted during a shutdown unless deemed “essential.”
Programs with Discretionary Funding
- WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)
- Head Start
- EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Some USDA programs
Because the 2025 government shutdown comes at the start of the federal 2026 fiscal year, this makes things particularly impactful because there’s no new funding approved, and agencies cannot rely on prior-year appropriations to continue operations. States cannot rely on previously reimbursed costs to cover new costs.
Hunger and Nutrition
SNAP Benefits
- Funding source: Benefits are funded by mandatory USDA appropriations, while administrative costs are funded by federal discretionary funds and state contributions. While it is a federal program, each state agency works with its own Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) vendor and decides its own disbursement date. Each month, states must transmit an electronic file with the information about each eligible SNAP household’s benefit amount to the EBT vendor by mid-month, so that the EBT vendor can process the data and load individual EBT cards with the next month’s SNAP benefits for that household.
- Short-term: Payouts continue for now, since benefits are pre-funded, but day-to-day processes like re-certifications, new approvals, and changes to benefits may slow or stop. After pre-funded dollars run out, reserves can be tapped into to cover costs.
- Longer-term: Some states may pay benefits early, as they did during the 2019 shutdown. Families would be forced to stretch their benefits for an uncertain amount of time, creating uncertainty. Federal workers out of paychecks long enough could become eligible for SNAP but face delays accessing those benefits.
- Long-term: If the pre-funding used to pay SNAP benefits to individuals/families runs out, SNAP benefits will not be paid at all, leaving 750,000 Alabamians (approx 15%) without food assistance.
WIC Benefits
- Funding source: WIC is federally funded through the annual appropriations process; states are not required to contribute funds, but states contribute to the administration of the program. Since 1997, Congress — on a bipartisan basis — has provided sufficient funding each year for WIC to serve all eligible applicants. Because this shutdown is at the start of the federal government’s fiscal year, it has less money in reserves and that has been authorized.
- Short-term: WIC operates with limited reserves. States and clinics with smaller budgets or financial constraints may reduce services quickly, limiting new enrollments or access to things like formula and nutrition support. The last reported number of WIC participants in Alabama was 111,154 in 2023.
- Longer-term: As reserves dry up, the state could start lowering benefits or scaling back services, and turning families away.
- Long-term: Funding lapses entirely, and WIC benefits stop, cutting off pregnant women, infants, and children from these benefits and needed nutritional support.
Food Banks and Emergency Food
- Funding Source: private and foundational donations, state funding and federal commodity programs such as TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program), administration for programs is paid for by state and local partners or individual food banks.
- Short-term: Food banks see an immediate rise in demand, especially from furloughed workers. Donations may rise initially but are unpredictable and depend on how many families in an area are directly affected by the shutdown and newly experiencing food insecurity. Alabama is home to about 57,540 federal civilian employees.
- Longer-term: Demand continues to grow as SNAP and WIC disruptions continue and supplies likely tighten. Federal commodity deliveries are slow due to a lack of funding and personnel.
- Long-term: Food banks face massive and ongoing shortages while demand continues to increase, leaving them unable to meet community needs.
School Meals
- Funding Source: School meals are paid for through the National School Lunch Program, a mandatory federal reimbursement program for schools; administration is paid for by federal discretionary funds and local school districts.
- Short-term: School meals continue because funding is already in place.
- Longer-term: Reimbursement delays force districts, especially smaller ones, to cover costs out of pocket. School may begin to cut other “non-essential” school functions to continue to provide food to students.
- Long-term: Payments stop. Schools may reduce or suspend meal service, creating immediate food insecurity for children who rely on school meals daily. Nearly 30 million children use the National School Lunch program for meals at school every day.
CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program)
- Funding source: Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is an entitlement program; federal per-meal reimbursements (including those for snacks and suppers) are guaranteed. However, Congress makes these funds available through the annual appropriations process and USDA releases the funds to State agencies. CACFP payments are reimbursements to participating centers for meals already served. States typically submit claims to USDA on a monthly or quarterly basis
- Short-term: Child care centers and adult day programs continue to provide meals and snacks with reserve funds or funds that have been federally pre-authorized.
- Longer-term: Payment delays child care centers and adult day programs, many of whom already struggle with cash flow. Some centers and programs may struggle to operate without meal reimbursements.
- Long-term: Programs close or reduce enrollment, limiting access to nutrition for children and older adults.
Agriculture and Farming
USDA Staff
- Short-term: About half of USDA staff are furloughed, meaning they are not working, are not paid, and do not have access to any technology associated with their jobs– phones, emails, work vehicles, etc. Only “essential” services like food safety inspections continue, and those workers are not paid, though they continue to work. Some employees who are not paid through federal appropriations are also able to continue working.
- Longer-term: Reduced staff capacity causes backlogs in work at every scale– from field offices and work directly with farmers to organizational maintenance. Program oversight and data collection are paused.
- Long-term: Restarting programs becomes harder once funding is restored. Furloughed employees may seek other employment, leaving the agency understaffed for a longer period of time.
Farm Service Agency (FSA)
- Short-term: Local offices close- stopping agency communications, new loans, commodity payments, disaster assistance, and program sign-ups.
- Longer-term: Delays build up in servicing loans and disaster payments. Farmers lose timely access to programs.
- Long-term: Missed grant and loan deadlines and a lack of support disrupt planting and harvest cycles, with long-lasting effects.
Loan Programs
- Short-term: No new loans are processed, and pending loans are frozen.
- Longer-term: Farmers reliant on seasonal financing struggle with cash flow and face missed payments.
- Long-term: Shutdown-driven delays push some farmers out of business due to a lack of funding and support, leaving us with less food and fewer farmers to feed us.
NRCS Grants and Other Programs (EQIP, CSP, REAP, etc.)
- Short-term: New contracts, payments, and technical assistance pause for farmer programs.
- Longer-term: Application windows are missed and applications are not processed, causing new conservation or energy projects to go unfunded and stalled on-farm. Delayed payment for completed reimbursement-based conservation activities starts causing cash flow problems for farmers.
- Long-term: Due to diminished trust in government resulting from unreliable offerings, participation in conservation and rural development programs drops, weakening long-term sustainability, resilience, and innovation. Without these programs, farmers are less able to mitigate the impacts of climate change and disasters as well as the inevitable ebbs and flows of farming.
FEMA Disaster Response
- Short-term: Essential FEMA staff continue operations while some administrative tasks are delayed.
- Longer-term: Staff strain and backlogs can slow disaster assistance and resource allocation.
- Long-term: Funding runs out and risks halting programs, delaying recovery, and decreasing resilience and readiness.
Non-profits and businesses with federal grants or contracts
USDA offices are shuttered, so no grant applications will be reviewed, and organizations or businesses may have trouble getting responses from program officers. Reimbursement-based grants and contracts will likely see delays.
- Short term: Program Officers have been furloughed, so response times and payment processing will be delayed.
- Longer-term: As agency offices remain closed, new grant applications and review panels will not operate, and reimbursements and payments will not be processed.
- Long-term: Program disruptions could mean that recipients are no longer able to continue programs that are reimbursement-based. New and existing grants will not operate.