Read our editorial on the government shutdown and the economic crisis here.
Following a federal judge’s order to have the Trump administration fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) for November, the Trump administration successfully appealed the order, and instead agreed to issue only 65% of SNAP benefits. No benefits will be provided to any who applied for SNAP in November.
The ongoing government shutdown—the longest in US history—is due to the lack of congressional approval on a funding bill for federal agencies in the 2026 fiscal year, with each party mafia trying to maximize its fiscal interests while people starve.
About 1 in 8 people in the US receive benefits from SNAP, with most of these recipients being the elderly and households with children. With restricted and uncertain SNAP benefits, many are forced to go hungry or try to pick up more work in the midst of an economic crisis of overproduction, where there are more job seekers than job openings and layoffs are on the rise.
A recent report reveals that 150,000 jobs were cut in October—the highest amount in over 2 decades for the month—bringing the total layoffs for 2025 to over 1 million. The shutdown itself has been used to lay off and furlough federal employees, with about 4,000 estimated to have been laid off, 670,000 furloughed, and 730,000 working without pay—all further exacerbating the hunger crisis.
Contrary to the Republican mafia’s chattering about SNAP benefits being provided to “anyone for the asking,” an analysis conducted in 2018 indicates that almost three quarters of SNAP recipients had worked at some point in the year they received benefits, all while being under 130% of the poverty line. In other words, SNAP protects monopolies’ profit margins by subsidizing paltry wages and unemployment.
While ruling class politicians force workers into starvation for their party mafia’s gain, the interests of the monopolists remain fully intact: Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Mellon fortune, donated $130 million to the US military to assist it during the shutdown. The US government also sent $20 billion to the old-State of Argentina following right-wing extremist Javier Milei’s re-election to deepen its domination of the semi-colony.
Both of the ruling class’s political mafias are holding the people’s money hostage, playing chicken to see who will let more people go hungry to obtain dominance over the State bureaucracy, particularly its military funding. While the ruling class openly uses hunger as a political tool, monopolists flaunt their increasing decadence, all expressions of the deepening economic crisis and the concentration of wealth and power in fewer hands.
Photo: A storefront in New York City. Credit: Nick Sherman.
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