Submitted
Glass
Fred Glass, President and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, said on Thursday, Nov. 13 that even as the SNAP cutoff – a preview of the disastrous impact of pending SNAP cuts – ends, Gleaners’ extra support efforts to meet the needs of food-insecure Hoosiers, exacerbated by the lingering effects of the shutdown, continue.
“While I’m relieved that SNAP benefits are being restored as part of the conclusion of the government shutdown,” Glass said, “the SNAP cutoff reinforced my belief that the SNAP cuts embedded in the budget reconciliation legislation passed last July will be a disaster for the food insecure, other Indiana workers, and every Hoosier.”
On Wednesday night, Nov. 12, with the passage and enactment of federal funding legislation, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended. The legislation funds most of the federal government only through Jan. 26, 2026, leaving open the possibility that federal workers will again face not being paid starting this February. Some departments are funded by the legislation for the full fiscal year, through Sept. 30, 2026, including the USDA and federal food and nutrition programs like SNAP, WIC, and TEFAP.
The state of Indiana has already issued all of the partial SNAP payments, regardless of the date the recipient would normally receive them. This significant decision ensures no SNAP recipients will miss a November payment. It remains unclear when and how the balance of the November payments will be issued. In December, the state will utilize its normal schedule of issuing benefits.
“I’m grateful to the state of Indiana for its deep engagement in this issue and for administratively restoring these benefits as quickly and robustly as possible,” Glass said.
Despite the conclusion of the shutdown, Gleaners is keeping its foot on the gas to staff up and stock up to meet the needs of the current record number of food-insecure Hoosiers. Gleaners continues to be focused on replenishing and building its inventory of nutritious food to be provided to those facing hunger through food pantries and food banks whose own inventories have been depleted as a result of the shutdown. Doing so requires Gleaners to continue to ask all distribution and transportation staff, approximately 40 employees, to significantly extend their work shifts leading into the Thanksgiving holiday.
As another example of its continuing activity, Gleaners will conduct a second special food distribution specifically for the members of the Army National Guard who have been serving Indiana and our country without pay.
Importantly, the legislation passed Wednesday night does not alter the SNAP cuts enacted by the federal government in July. That legislation will, effective fiscal year 2028, cut 15 percent, or $214 million, of food access to Hoosiers in need, the vast majority of whom work, if they are able to do so. This is the equivalent of 80 million meals that, as was reinforced with the SNAP cutoff, neither the state of Indiana nor its charitable food system will be able to replace.
More than 610,000 Hoosiers, including 264,000 children and 82,000 seniors, rely on SNAP to buy their groceries and will go hungry as a result of this legislation, with all the corresponding negative health and economic consequences for them and the rest of society.
That legislation will also shift $46 million in SNAP administrative costs to Indiana taxpayers, effective fiscal year 2027, essentially further cutting benefits to Hoosiers facing hunger who need and rely on them. Unfortunately, that legislation has already mandated red tape claimed to be solutions for problems that don’t exist but will have its real intended effect to reduce or eliminate food and healthcare benefits to workers, children, seniors, veterans, the disabled, and the sick.
“The SNAP cutoff helped America understand what a critical and effective program SNAP is and was a sneak peek at the potentially disastrous impact cutting SNAP has on Hoosiers and other Americans facing hunger,” Glass observed. “In fact, the specter of the lack of SNAP throwing hard-working Americans facing food insecurity into abject hunger was clearly a significant part of why Congress ended the shutdown. Let’s hope that lesson leads them to restore future SNAP funding.”
For more than 60 years, until now without interruption, SNAP has helped people with low incomes buy nutritious food from farmers through local grocery stores. For 610,000 Hoosiers and millions of Americans, SNAP is all that stands between them and outright hunger and its awful personal and societal costs.
Moreover, the natural rise in SNAP participation during tough economic times creates greater SNAP expenditures to naturally and automatically help the overall economy. Terminating SNAP payments could also lead to the closure of grocery stores, particularly those that tend to be near food deserts. For some independent groceries, SNAP purchases account for most of their sales.
“For every meal the entire charitable food system provides, the federal government has traditionally provided nine,” Glass said. “So, when the federal government retreats from that role, as it did during the shutdown and plans to do through the budget reconciliation legislation, no one food bank – or even every food bank working together – can come close to meeting the needs of the hungry left behind.”
Learn more or contribute at gleaners.org.
