Tony Romm

And as a result of that, it's going to make partial payments to people, but those partial payments may be perhaps half of what families are expecting to see in the month of November.

And it's not even clear when that money might reach the millions of people who depend on SNAP.

So while in some ways it was a bit of a victory for people who subscribe to this program, it's a little unclear if it's actually going to provide the kind of relief that these families truly need.

No, no, we haven't seen anything like this with the SNAP program.

I mean, there are fights around federal safety net programs all the time.

But, you know, both sides admitted while they were in court that there had never really been anything like this.

So SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and it's the largest anti-hunger program that the federal government offers.

There are about 42 million or so people who receive benefits under SNAP every single month, which amounts to about one in eight Americans.

And these are people located all over the country.

They live in rural and urban areas.

They live in Democratic and Republican-leaning communities.

Many of them are children.

Some of them are veterans.

They're seniors.

It's a pretty wide swath of the population that relies on this critical federal safety net program.

But there are some restrictions to it.

Generally speaking, to get on SNAP, you have to make or earn an amount of money near the poverty line.

Mm-hmm.

For people who qualify, the average benefit per person is about $187 a month, which is critical to helping these people buy groceries, but doesn't go all the way in meeting all of their nutrition needs.

And so that's why SNAP is part of this bigger picture of food pantries and other services that help address the issue of hunger here in the United States.