By Laura Daniella Sepulveda | Cronkite News

PHOENIX – For Ivone Rubio, a single mother of five in Arizona, her paycheck is the main source of support for her family.

In her home, where money barely stretches from month to month, receiving government assistance to buy groceries through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has been a lifeline.

“It really helps a lot,” she said. “Especially now that everything is so expensive – we really need it.”

Rubio is among the more than 850,000 people in Arizona who have been affected by the delay and projected reduction in SNAP benefits this month. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday it will issue only partial SNAP payments in November, following federal court orders requiring the agency to continue providing food assistance to millions of families who were set to lose benefits amid the government shutdown.

To do so, the department will tap into a contingency fund the Trump administration initially refused to use. However, the fund is only enough to “cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments,” according to a declaration from Patrick Penn, a USDA official who oversees SNAP, submitted to a federal court in Rhode Island.

As a result, families could receive only half as much of their usual amounts. Delays in the benefits, which were supposed to be distributed on Nov. 1, were already impacting millions of families. 

Limited, momentary relief

The federal courts’ ruling came after 25 states, including Arizona, sued the federal government over the imminent suspension of benefits, accusing the Trump administration of illegally freezing aid.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, one of the plaintiffs, criticized the Trump administration for attempting to halt the aid.

“They are quite literally ripping away access to food and health care for millions of Americans,” Mayes said during a press conference last week. “This cruelty is totally and completely unnecessary. … The USDA repeatedly acknowledged that SNAP contingency funds were available for paying benefits.”

According to Mayes, roughly one in eight people and one in four children in Arizona receive food benefits. In rural counties such as Gila and Apache, about half of all families rely on those benefits to buy groceries, she said.

In September, Arizona families receiving SNAP benefits got an average of $360 to purchase food.

“We know that the majority of Arizonans simply don’t have an extra $360 a month,” Mayes said.

Despite the legal win, USDA officials said the contingency funds available were not enough to pay for full benefit amounts. 

In the declaration submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, Penn said the agency had roughly $4.6 billion from the initial $6 billion available in contingency funds because the Food and Nutrition Service, which administers SNAP, used about $750 million from those funds in October, and was planning to use $550 million more in November, for the state agencies’ administrative expenses and the Nutrition Assistance Program block grants for Puerto Rico and American Samoa. 

To fully cover SNAP benefits for the roughly 42 million families who rely on the program to buy food during November, the agency would require more than $9 billion, according to the declaration. 

Still, the agency said it will deplete the remaining contingency funds “completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

“This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely,” Penn said. 

‘Either we eat or we pay the bills’

Six days a week, Rubio wakes up at 5 a.m. to go to her cleaning job. She returns home around 6 p.m., as the sun begins to set.

Despite the long working hours, Rubio said sometimes the money isn’t enough.

“It’s been really hard,” she said. “There were times when the money just didn’t stretch. … That’s why I applied for the benefits.”

The delay comes at a particularly difficult time for Rubio and her family. Her oldest son, who used to help with some expenses, lost his job three months ago — a serious blow to their household finances.

Since then, Rubio has been piling up unpaid bills. And as her household’s debt grows, the uncertainty over the future of the food benefits program does, too.

“You can’t imagine how stressed I am,” she said. “I’ve been racking my brain — either we eat, or we pay the bills.”

María Carrillo, another mother from the Phoenix area impacted by the delay in benefits, said she’s worried about how the changes will hit her family. 

Carrillo lives with three of her children, her 8-year-old grandson and her husband, who had always been the main provider.

But four months ago, her husband, a construction worker, broke his foot after falling from a house, leaving him unable to work.

Since then, the family has relied solely on the income of her 19-year-old daughter.

“It affects us a lot because my daughter is the only one covering all the expenses,” Carrillo said. “So, for them to take away that help, even temporarily, really impacts us.”

Carrillo said SNAP benefits usually cover most of her family’s grocery bill, and she only needs to pay a small amount from her own pocket. 

But after receiving a text message notifying her that her benefits would be suspended in November, she began paying closer attention to grocery prices.

“Everything’s so expensive,” Carrillo said. “If you go to the store today, a pound of meat costs $7. … Prices are just too high.”

Carrillo said she’s especially worried about her grandson, who also depends on food assistance.

“Think about the children,” Carrillo urged government officials. “We adults can eat whatever – but the kids can’t.”

‘A bucket of cold water’ for low-income families

Reyna González, director of Helping Families in Need, an Arizona organization that assists families in applying for programs such as SNAP and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System AHCCCS, said they’ve received a wave of calls from families who are confused and worried about the change in benefits.

“Many people call us … asking how this will affect them in the future,” González said. “They complain that they won’t get enough help this month, ask when benefits will be paid again – things we don’t even know yet.”

González said this year, the organization has seen an increase in food benefit applications, which she attributes to rising prices.

In recent months, the group has helped fill out between 400 and 500 applications per month, González said. About half of those are for food stamps.

“These are low-income families,” González said. “Most of them only have one person working, and they’re really struggling right now, with everything being so expensive.”

Mayes said in a news conference last week that she hopes the federal government will restore benefits to affected families before the end of the month.

“I will not stand by as Arizona families go hungry,” she said. “Yanking away low-income grocery support while Trump’s tariffs make household goods even more expensive is just cruel.”

The Arizona Department of Economic Security, which administers SNAP in the state, is directing beneficiaries who need immediate help to local food banks while the government reinstates the aid.

Rubio said although the news of the benefit suspension felt like “a bucket of cold water” for her family, it was just another in a series of surprises she’s faced in recent months.

“We keep getting one surprise after another – we don’t even know what’s coming next,” she said. “Hopefully, after everything, something good will come.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.