‘Drop in the bucket’: Illinois measures to offset SNAP cuts will not
alleviate problem
[October 31, 2025]
By Maggie Dougherty
CHICAGO — Illinois mother of four and food delivery driver Aubrey
Lewandowski says she immediately started rationing the food she had left
after getting a text alerting her that her Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits may not come through next month.
Lewandowski will be forced to choose between buying healthy food for her
four children and paying rent and utility bills if the federal
government does not allocate emergency funds by the Nov. 1 deadline.
She is one of roughly 1.9 million people in Illinois and 42 million
across the country who depend on SNAP benefits each month. Illinois
oversees the distribution of $350 million in federal SNAP benefits to
qualifying low-income and disabled individuals and households each
month.
Illinois and other states sued the Trump administration earlier this
week, arguing that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has the money to
continue paying SNAP benefits using contingency funds appropriated by
Congress for emergencies such as the government shutdown that began Oct.
1.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani indicated in court Thursday morning
that she would issue a ruling later in the day. She appeared to favor
arguments requiring the government to allocate billions of dollars in
emergency funds for SNAP.
Pritzker’s executive order
While awaiting Talwani’s ruling, Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive
order allocating $20 million in state funding as a stopgap measure to
support Illinois’s seven food banks, which supply over 2,600 food
pantries across the state.
Half of the funding comes from the state’s Budget Reserve for Immediate
Disbursements and Governmental Emergencies Fund, or BRIDGE, and the rest
comes from the Illinois Department of Human Services. Lawmakers put $100
million into the BRIDGE fund last year to deal with emergencies caused
by federal funding changes.
Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference Thursday morning that the
federal government had decided to shut down the SNAP machines, meaning
the state could not deposit funds directly into SNAP accounts even if it
wanted to. He called the decision “insidious.”
Food assistance advocates and state officials acknowledged that the
state funds to food banks would not be enough to fill the gap left by
shutting off federal funds. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton called the funding
“a drop in the bucket” at a news conference Thursday morning.
Kate Maehr, executive director and CEO of the Greater Chicago Food
Depository, said food pantries in Cook County alone support more than
900,000 people, amounting to an estimated $45 to 50 million in weekly
benefits for that area alone.
To make the $20 million gift from the state go as far as possible, Maehr
said the food banks will prioritize purchasing shelf-stable foods like
dry rice and pasta.
In the previous 24 hours, Maehr said food banks in the area had received
an uptick in phone calls from people asking how they could help. But she
has also heard that donors are fatigued, with most food banks in the
state now serving double the number of people they served prior to the
start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last year, the seven food banks
that serve Illinois all hit record numbers of monthly visits, according
to Maehr.
She attributed that increase to rising costs of food and housing and
disinvestments in people’s safety nets.
Even if SNAP funding is resumed immediately, Maehr said, another crisis
looms. New rules going into effect on Dec. 1 will result in 17,000 legal
immigrants having their SNAP benefits revoked, Maehr said. Nearly
400,000 additional people in Illinois may lose their SNAP benefits in
March 2026 amid new paperwork requirements to demonstrate employment,
according to the governor’s office.
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Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton speaks on Oct. 30 with food assistance
advocates and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients
about the impact of a looming federal cutoff in SNAP funding.
(Capitol News Illinois photo by Maggie Dougherty)
“We are bracing ourselves,” Maehr said. “It’s not for one crisis, but
for a series of crises.”
Advocates argue the ramifications for the state stretch beyond the
direct hunger of SNAP recipients, but also to store owners, suppliers
and ultimately Illinois farmers.
Grocer sees Catch 22
Liz Abunaw owns and operates Forty Acres Fresh Market, an independent
grocery store in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, a west side area where
years of disinvestment have made access to fresh and nutritious foods a
challenge.
The market opened its doors less than two months ago, but Abunaw said it
is already facing a crisis.
“SNAP accounts for up to 20% of our revenue,” Abunaw said. “So, what
does that mean when our customers who use SNAP cannot shop at our store
anymore?”
Like Lewandowski choosing between paying utility and other bills or
buying food for her kids, Abunaw said she must make choices between
payroll, rent and inventory.
It impacts the employees who she cannot afford to pay and the suppliers
whose products she can no longer afford to buy, Abunaw said.
“This is a domino effect that will reverberate from families to grocery
stores to suppliers all the way down to our farmers if this madness is
not stopped,” Abunaw said.
Every dollar in SNAP assistance results in a $1.50 economic boost for
communities, according to Illinois Department of Human Services
Secretary Dulce Quintero. That comes out to a $7.2 billion annual impact
on the state’s economy.
The SNAP program, also known as food stamps, has been administered
continuously by the federal government for over 60 years and has never
halted benefits, even during a government shutdown, Quintero said.
Stratton called it a “false choice” by the Trump administration.
“They are choosing to let SNAP funds run out,” Stratton said. “President
Trump is deliberately letting families go hungry, taking food off of the
tables of children and weaponizing hunger for political leverage.”
An estimated 45% of SNAP households include children, and 44% include a
person with a disability.
For parents like Lewandowski, who has two children diagnosed with autism
and one with sensory processing needs, SNAP benefits provide access to
the foods that meet her son’s needs but are not always available at food
banks or pantries.
While she does rely on those resources, Lewandowski said the fresh
produce, cheese, eggs and milk that her children need to grow up healthy
are not always available there.
“I want to be able to provide my children with the best nutrition they
can have. Healthy children do better in school, and they don’t get
sick,” Lewandowski said.
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