A week after declaring emergency, Alaska has not yet spent state funds on food assistance

Iris Samuels, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska on Nov 11, 2025

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Alaska has not spent state funds to replace lost federal food assistance, state officials said Tuesday, despite Gov. Mike Dunleavy's promise to do so.

Amid the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, President Donald Trump has halted full federal food assistance to the more than 40 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, including more than 66,000 Alaskans.

Dunleavy initially said the state could not use its own funds to replace federal aid, but last week — amid pressure from state lawmakers — he declared a state of emergency and promised that state funding would be distributed to SNAP recipients across the state through the Electronic Benefit Transfer cards.

However, Division of Public Assistance Director Deb Etheridge said Tuesday that no state funds had been issued to SNAP recipients through the EBT cards due to constantly shifting federal guidance.

The Trump administration, responding to court orders, allowed half the required SNAP deposits to be issued last week, amounting to more than $11 million to Alaskans. Typical federal distributions to Alaskans amount to more than $20 million per month. But the administration in court in recent days repeatedly argued against allowing the full funding to go through.

"We've been having daily meetings, sometimes multiple times a day, just to make sure that we're following (Food and Nutrition Service) guidance and issuing benefits as quickly as possible. But it's been a lot of work for my team, and everyone has been working overtime to get it done," Etheridge said.

That has left Alaska's SNAP recipients with just half the aid they would expect to receive at the beginning of the month.

Though the Alaska Division of Public Assistance has been working on a solution that would allow it to bypass federal guidance and distribute state funds to SNAP recipients, that solution won't be in place until later this month, Etheridge said.

Dunleavy also promised to distribute state funding to Alaska food banks to offset some of the need created by uncertainty around SNAP. Etheridge said Tuesday that the funding is set to include roughly $2 million to the Food Bank of Alaska and $500,000 to the Fairbanks Community Food Bank. The money will be distributed later this week, she said.

The U.S. Senate voted Monday to advance a bill that would end the shutdown. The bill would fund the federal government through January, but ensure that SNAP benefits are paid out through the end of the 2026 fiscal year, to avoid repeated disruptions.

The U.S. House is set to vote on the measure later this week. The shutdown will remain in effect until the bill passes both chambers and is signed into law by Trump.

Once the shutdown ends, it will be a matter of days until SNAP benefits are paid out in full to recipients in Alaska, Etheridge said.

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