West Virginians relying on food stamps are hoping the government reopens. Politicians are busy blaming each other.
By Henry Culvyhouse
for Mountain State Spotlight
This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get stories like this delivered to your email inbox once a week; sign up for the free newsletter at https://mountainstatespotlight.org/newsletter.
Traci Hicks is the sole provider for her husband and four children, who range in ages from 6 to 15.
Hicks, a gas station manager in Marion County, said she works 50 hours a week to get by, starting her days at 4:30 a.m. After work, she gets the kids from school, helps with homework and cooks dinner.
With rising food prices and utilities, Hicks said her food stamps are key to staying afloat on a tight budget.
“We’re just trying to figure out each day,” Hicks said. “We go paycheck to paycheck with our rent and our utilities. It’s not easy.”
But the government shutdown threatens that lifeline for Hicks and about 270,000 other West Virginians who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps.
Tens of thousands of West Virginians already face losing health care benefits because of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and its cuts to Medicaid and insurance subsidies. Democrats in Congress want to reverse those cuts, and refused to help pass a government funding bill without that language.
As a result, the federal government has been closed since Oct. 1. Now, that shutdown has food stamp money for struggling West Virginians drying up.
Over the weekend, the West Virginia Department of Human Services announced that the continued shutdown could delay payments in November for people who rely on food stamps for their meals. Any new recipient, who was approved on or after Oct. 16, will have their October payment delayed as well.
West Virginian households with children on food stamps receive an average of $504 a month, but that varies depending on household size, income and other factors.
Joyce Carr is a retail worker at a Dollar Tree in Kanawha County. Carr’s husband receives Social Security, and her two teenage daughters are not working. She is lucky to bring home $200 a week from her job. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she misses a payment.
“I honestly have no idea. I’m at a loss, because I was already barely making it as it was,” she said.
When asked what the state could do to help out those who might be affected, Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s spokesman Drew Ganglang said the state can’t afford to foot the bill and directed people to food pantries and other community resources.
Cyndi Kirkhart, director of the Facing Hunger Foodbank in Huntington, said she’s never seen a situation like this. Her food bank serves 17 counties across West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.
“I don’t recall that,” she said. “I think that would be burned into my memory, right? I think, though, what makes this even more significant is people were already struggling with high prices.”
And that can cause a cascading effect. Those who rely on food stamps will have to look to food pantries. But food pantries are already struggling to keep their warehouses full because food costs have gone up.
“Once we get into November, that is when a lot of potential pain for vulnerable, food insecure, hard working West Virginians comes into play,’ said Caitlin Cook, a director at the Mountaineer Food Bank in Gassaway.
And it’s not just people receiving food stamps who stand to get hurt.
Maura Seever works delivering people’s groceries, many of whom are disabled and rely on food stamps. If business dries up because nobody got their benefits, Seever said she will have to look for other work.
Seever said she has sent emails to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s office, pleading with her to help end the shutdown.
But so far, West Virginia’s federal delegation, all Republicans, haven’t shown any indication they are willing to negotiate or walk away from their party’s position to try to work out a deal to reopen.
Last week, Capito did note that food stamps could come under strain due to the shutdown. While she invited Democrats to the negotiating table, she later stated that she will only support reopening the government if they back down.
“Senate GOP are not going to let the government be held hostage and hijacked over an issue,” she wrote in a Tweet on Oct. 20.
Sen. Jim Justice only offered general comments at the beginning of the shutdown, casting blame on the Democrats for it. He has since used his social media to promote Bridge Day, congratulate some nominees from West Virginia and celebrate the birthday of his English Bulldog, Baby Dog.
Reps. Carol Miller and Riley Moore have both called for an end to the shutdown. Moore has appeared on social and news media stating that Republicans will make no concessions to reopen the government.
But as Hicks, the gas station manager, observed, the politicians aren’t the ones who stand to lose the most.
“We don’t all make beaucoup amounts of money like they do, and we’re all over here struggling,” she said.
Mountain State Spotlight asked the members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation what efforts they were making to find a solution in order to prevent thousands of West Virginians from missing their payments, but no one responded.
For people like Audra Brooks, a 57-year-old legally blind woman living in Raleigh County, the options for going without her food stamps are limited.
“My daughter and I talked about it,” she said. “It’s either I let my power bill go or pay only half of it and buy groceries, or my daughter buys my groceries for me.”
