by McKenna Horsley, Kentucky Lantern
November 13, 2025
Kentucky has received guidance from the federal government needed for state workers to begin processing full food assistance benefits to residents, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.
Beshear, a Democrat, announced the news in his weekly press conference, adding that he had just learned of the federal guidance moments before and would provide more information about the timing of the payments at a later time.
Government reopens after 43 days: Trump signs bill ending record shutdown
The Kentucky governor had joined a lawsuit with more than two dozen Democratic state officials suing the Trump administration for halting funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to 42 million Americans, including around 600,000 Kentuckians, during the government shutdown.
“Let me just say that this didn’t have to happen in this shutdown,” Beshear said Thursday. “This is the first president that has ever refused to pay SNAP benefits during a shutdown. Two courts told him that he could pay full benefits during a shutdown, and he went to court to try to not pay those full benefits.”
The lawsuit is still pending. The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court’s order that the Trump administration pay for a full month of food benefits.
The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history ended Wednesday.
Beshear said that state employees worked through the night of Nov. 6 after the initial court ruling to begin processing partial SNAP payments for Kentuckians.
He later added that the “middle of the month” is when most Kentuckians who use SNAP will likely see dollars come into their accounts. Because some partial payments have been issued already, the process is more complicated than it normally would be.
Other federal programs that help Kentuckians are set to resume now that the government shutdown is over, Beshear said. One such program is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, known in Kentucky as KTAP or Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program. He said Kentucky provided state funding during the federal shutdown to keep the small cash payments flowing to low-income families and would be reimbursed.
Asked about congressional Democrats who broke ranks to vote with Republicans to reopen the government, Beshear said that his goal “is to make the best of” the shutdown ending “as we move forward for Kentucky.”
A handful of Senate Democrats gave the stopgap funding measure the necessary votes to end the shutdown. Democrats failed to win their major demand, an extension of tax credits that hold down health insurance costs for millions of Americans.
“There aren’t winners in a shutdown, but I think the American people very clearly saw who was fighting for their health care and who didn’t care if their health care premiums went up, and they saw who was willing to let people go hungry and who wasn’t,” the governor said.
Two Kentucky Republicans — Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie — voted against the temporary spending bill that reopened the government. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, also voted against it.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.
Comments