Food banks in North Texas are bracing for a possible government shutdown as Congress struggles to reach an agreement on federal spending.
A shutdown could delay paychecks for millions of federal employees and disrupt nutrition assistance programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — or WIC program — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.
Government funding ends Oct. 1 and if Congress is unable to pass a funding plan by Sunday at 12:01 a.m., the government will shut down.
This isn’t the first time a shutdown has happened. The last shutdown — which lasted 35 days between 2018 and 2019 — caused increased demand for nonprofit food distributors like North Texas Food Bank.
“The longer [a government shutdown] goes on, the bigger the impact,” said Clarissa Clarke, NTFB Government Relations Officer. “The government, they can handle it like the SNAP programs and the WIC for about a month. But once it goes on longer than that — the longer it goes on — the worse it is for our neighbors.”
What could cause a government shutdown?
Lawmakers are supposed to pass 12 different spending bills to fund agencies across the government.
In May, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed on spending $1.59 trillion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, but members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus reject that deal and demand $120 billion in cuts.
For now, SNAP benefits will be available in full through October, Clarke said. But if a shutdown continued into November, those benefits could be disrupted.
In fiscal year 2023, the North Texas Food Bank distributed more than 46 million meals through the SNAP program.
MORE | Inflation, cuts to federal food aid drive massive need at North Texas food banks
During the last shutdown, Tarrant Area Food Bank — which provides 60 million meals per year to 13 North Texas counties — held mobile distributions to feed federal employees who were temporarily without a paycheck, and they’re preparing to do it again this year, said Julie Butner, Tarrant Area Food Bank president and CEO.
“Should a government shutdown occur, we will be focused on the mid-cities where the airport is located and then focused at the Joint Reserve Base, where we know there are a lot of active duty military as well as federal workers and federal contract employees,” Butner said.
In the event of a shutdown, federal employees will receive a partial paycheck on Oct. 18, and would miss their first full paycheck by Nov. 1.
As of Thursday, Butner said Tarrant Area Food Bank anticipated a shutdown and mobile distributions are planned for the last week of October.
Post-pandemic inflation and rising food costs paired with a growing population in North Texas would add to the increased demands felt by area food banks.
“As you see people moving to North Texas, there is a percentage of that population that is not earning a living wage,” Butner said. “And so, we are seeing higher numbers of people who are coming to our partner agencies and the food bank than we've seen in the past.”
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