Town by town Mass. map shows where SNAP cuts will hit hardest: Find your city
More than 1 million people in Massachusetts are at risk of not receiving federal food aid starting Nov. 1.
With the federal government still shut down, funds for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance are set to dry up at the beginning of the month.
SNAP is a federal program that provides benefits to low-income households to help buy groceries.
The Trump administration announced it would not tap the roughly $5 million in contingency funds to keep benefits active in November, the Associated Press reported.
If the government shutdown isn't resolved before midnight, Nov. 1, millions of Americans could see SNAP benefits end.
As of September, there are 1,061,460 individuals in Massachusetts who receive SNAP benefits, according to data from the state's Department of Transitional Assistance.
The largest number of SNAP recipients in the state come from its most populous city: Boston. There are 140,149 SNAP recipients in the city, which represents 20.9% of Boston's population.
But other cities across the state have high proportions of their residents enrolled in the program.
In Springfield, almost half of the city's population (47.4%) receives federal aid from the program — the largest percentage of any Massachusetts community. Holyoke and Lawrence follow with 43.3% and 41.7% of their populations receiving benefits, respectively.
In many of Massachusetts' largest cities, the percentage of the population who receive SNAP benefits is over 20%.
In Worcester, Massachusetts's second-largest city, more than a quarter of its population (25.3%) are SNAP recipients.
In Fall River and New Bedford, the percentage of SNAP recipients is nearly identical, with Fall River having 34.3% and New Bedford 34.2%.
In Massachusetts's fourth-largest city, Cambridge, only 8.3% of its population are SNAP recipients.
The suburbs around Boston, such as Wellesley and Needham, have numbers under 5%, with 3.3% of Needham's population on SNAP and 2.3% of Wellesley's.
The top 10 communities with the highest percentage of its population who receive SNAP benefits are as follows:
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Springfield: 47.4%
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Holyoke: 43.3%
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Lawrence: 41.7%
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Southbridge: 35.6%
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Fall River: 34.3%
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New Bedford: 34.2%
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Brockton: 33.6%
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North Adams: 33.5%
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Fitchburg: 30.3%
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Chicopee: 29.6%
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, along with the Attorneys General from 25 other states, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to preserve the food assistance benefits.
"Despite having the money to fund SNAP, the Trump Administration is creating needless fear, angst and harm for millions of families and their children, especially as we approach the holidays," Campbell said.
In Worcester, city leaders will hold an emergency press conference Thursday afternoon to share news about SNAP benefits and heating assistance. Details about the news were not provided in an email from the city.
In the meantime, Worcester City Council Vice Chair Khrystian King on Wednesday called on Worcester's food assistance nonprofits to work together.
"Worcester has always stepped up for one another," King said in a press release. "Now more than ever, we must come together to care for our neighbors."
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