PHILADELPHIA — Full SNAP benefits payments were flowing Friday to Pennsylvanians who were due at the start of November, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced while ripping into President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who he accused of acting purposefully to “keep people hungry.”
“Folks got to wake up and realize the people who are leading in America quite literally want to keep people hungry. And, you’ll excuse me for getting emotional about it, but when I see people in my state who are hungry because of JD Vance’s bull—- politics, that makes me angry and that’s why I went to court,” Shapiro said. “America deserves better than JD Vance.”
The Trump administration on Thursday appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island who ordered that SNAP food subsidies be paid to beneficiaries in full. The administration froze SNAP beginning Nov. 1 due to the federal government shutdown.
“Unfortunately, though, we’ve got an administration in Washington who has proven time and time and time again they don’t give a damn about their neighbors in need,” Shapiro said. “My appeal to the Trump administration is, just do the right thing, give up, you’re going to lose again in court. And, the only thing you’re fighting for is to make Americans hungry. I don’t know why you’d want to do that but this is where we are today.”
Shapiro attacked Vance for taking a position on SNAP harmful to many from the rural Appalachians where he was raised. He spoke of Vance’s rise to prominence on the back of his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” while accusing the vice president of being a “total phony.”
“He made millions of dollars on the backs of telling their stories and then he turned his damn back on those very people who he likes to write about and claims as his own,” Shapiro said.
“He claims to be a person of faith,” the governor, who is of the Jewish faith, continued. “I know my Bible. My Bible teaches us to love thy neighbor, and we are to feed the hungry.”
Shapiro and Vance are viewed as potential opponents in the 2028 presidential election cycle. Shapiro’s campaign arm issued a press release about his remarks shortly after they were made during a visit at Share Food, a Philadelphia food bank.
A request for comment from The White House was not immediately returned.
Shapiro joined a multi-state lawsuit last week demanding that the administration release funds from a $6 billion contingency fund to ensure the delivery of SNAP benefits despite the shutdown over a federal spending plan.
When the administration balked at an order to use other funding sources to fully pay out the approximate $8.5 billion in monthly SNAP benefits, instead saying it would make partial payments — arguing it was up to Congress to appropriate the funding — the litigants, including Shapiro, pursued the latest ruling to fully fund the program.
According to The Associated Press, Vance told reporters that Thursday’s ruling was “absurd.”
“What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP,” Vance said. “But in the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation.”
More than 42 million people nationwide, including nearly 2 million in Pennsylvania, participate in SNAP. The federal government fully funds the program. Pennsylvania receives about $366 million monthly, with in-state beneficiaries receiving about $182 monthly on average. The national monthly average is about $191.
In a 2023 report from USDA on SNAP beneficiary characteristics, 37% of working-age adults without a disability were at least partially employed. That figure rose to 45% for those living with children.
In Pennsylvania, according to data from the Department of Human Services, about 35% of SNAP recipients are minors, 25% are age 55 or older, and 11% between ages 18 and 54 have a disability.
“If you were owed benefits on the first of November,” Shapiro said Friday, “you should be receiving from the vendor today, as a result of the work the Department of Human Services has done, 100 percent of what was owed to you.”
The governor estimated about $100 million in funds will be disbursed. Not all recipients receive benefits on the same schedule. Additional payments are due to other beneficiaries at different points this month.
Shapiro has repeatedly said Pennsylvania can’t afford to backfill a loss or freeze of SNAP benefits. It risks food security for 1 in 8 Pennsylvanians, he said, including more than 700,000 children.
Aside from pursuing legal remedy, Shapiro signed executive orders freeing up $5 million in immediate assistance provided to various food banks within Pennsylvania’s charitable food network to serve all 67 counties. More than $2 million additionally has been donated privately, he said.