Maryland leaders says SNAP recipients will soon receive full benefits

In fact, Marylanders have already begun to get to see their benefits on cards. Gov. Moore took decisive action and wasn’t going to wait for the federal government. So we began processing a partial benefit for Marylanders — the over 684,000 people in every single one of the 24 jurisdictions who rely on and deserve these benefits to make sure food is on the table.

As of Nov. 13, we were thrilled to have issued over $46 million in November benefits, representing well over 217,000 households across the state of Maryland.

And on Nov. 18, the rest of those benefits will be plussed up on their cards, so that Marylanders who would normally receive benefits from Nov. 4-18 are made whole with 100% funded federal benefits. And then for Marylanders who would normally receive benefits between the 18th of the month and the end of the month, they too receive 100% of their benefits.

So Nov. 18 is another big day for Marylanders to make sure that all 684,000 customers across the state get the benefits that they deserve.

To be frank, the stories are heart wrenching, because on Nov. 1 all states in the country received a directive from the USDA not to fund them, and it caused an extraordinary scramble across the country. And here in Maryland, just like other states, we were getting near daily contradictory guidance. On one day, they would tell us only do 50% benefits. On another day, they tell us do 65% of benefits, while they were changing allotments. So each time, the total number of dollars available to SNAP cards was changing.

Similarly, we had to calculate and recalculate to make sure every single Marylander gets the benefits they deserve. And at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that we were following the law. The USDA was even fighting the lawsuits that Maryland joined to make sure that the USDA was using it SNAP Contingency Fund, and the judges agreed with us.

And so there’s been a lot of confusion, people not being able to make the decisions they need to feed their families. The average Marylander receives about $180 per month on their SNAP benefits, and they ultimately have to stretch that out. So we wanted to make sure that Marylanders had the benefits that not only that they were entitled to, but that they deserve.

And of the 684,000 Marylanders who receive SNAP benefits, I want to call out the over 270,000 children across all 24 jurisdictions. We don’t want any child to go hungry, and we wanted to leave no one behind. So the stories of planning not being able to go to the grocery store, people going hungry, are real. And right now, we are working around the clock to make sure Nov. 18, every single child and their family get the benefits on those EBT cards.

Thank you for the question. No, it is not. And as I mentioned, Gov. Moore decided to act with urgency to make sure that Marylanders had access to some benefits. When I mentioned the Nov. 13, we used a couple million dollars to make sure that we could make Marylanders receive some benefits.

There is language in the continuing resolution so that Maryland will get reimbursed for the portion of the $62 million that we were able to use, and we were already dispersing those benefits to Marylanders.

So Gov. Moore was among the leaders in the nation making sure that we were responsive and making sure that Marylanders got some benefits on their cards. We’re thrilled that the shutdown has ended and we can revert to using 100% federally funded benefits for SNAP.