Benefits for SNAP/Calfresh were issued Friday and Monday, taking advantage of a brief window of opportunity between judicial orders.
Kristina Keheley, director of Mariposa County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), said full benefits were issued Nov. 6 for 1,009 cases, with 543 more cases issued full benefits over the weekend.
HHSA was expected to finish payouts on Monday.
Those benefits, loaded on to Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, were for the full month of November.
It capped a weekend roller coaster of court intervention and political brinkmanship.
On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to fully fund SNAP for November, even though there’s a federal government shutdown.
Many states, including California, rushed to release benefits to recipients who are usually paid alphabetically from the beginning of the month.
But on Friday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused the judge’s order so an appeals court could review it.
On Saturday, the Trump Administration ordered states to “immediately undo” efforts to provide SNAP benefits to low-income families.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funds the program, threatened financial penalties on states that do not comply with the order.
In a court filing the Trump Administration said states would be “responsible for the consequences.”
SNAP is the nation’s largest anti hunger program. Some 42 million people — one in eight Americans — depend on the monthly food assistance to buy groceries.
In Mariposa County, SNAP/CalFresh serves 3,131 people, or 1,879 households, more than 17 percent of the county.
The monthly average spent on the program in Mariposa County, mostly at grocery stores, was $578,488.
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