NC and SNAP

As the federal government shutdown continues, the North Carolina Department of Health received guidance from the USDA to issue partial benefits for November to the nearly 1.4 million people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. NC Health is updating its payment system to issue benefits. If federal funding is provided this week as expected, all partial benefits should be loaded onto EBT cards by next week, so beneficiaries should check the balances on their cards often. This follows USDA’s statement it would use $4.65 billion in emergency funds to cover about half of the federal SNAP program for the month of November in response to a lawsuit filed by North Carolina and 24 other states.