Shelves are stacked with boxes of food on Nov. 3, 2025, at Feeding South Dakota’s Rapid City distribution center. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)
Maybe there are lessons to be learned from the federal government shutdown. One of those lessons might be the way the sudden lack of federal funding shines a light on the hidden problems of society that we don’t think about or don’t want to think about. One of those problems is hunger.
As the shutdown progressed, the deadline approached for funding to run out for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The federal SNAP program offers food assistance to 42 million low-income Americans. In South Dakota, it provides food assistance to 75,000 citizens.
That 75,000 number may be hard to quantify. Think of it this way: The combined populations of three of South Dakota’s largest communities totals about 75,000. If you live in Brookings, Aberdeen or Watertown, take a look around at your family, your neighbors, your co-workers. Now imagine them all hungry as the federal SNAP funds dry up. It’s hard to believe so many people in South Dakota are dependent on the federal government for food.
South Dakota won’t tap reserve funds to fill federal food assistance gap, governor says
Another lesson that emerged from the shutdown is the way that state government reacts to a problem. In the case of the SNAP fund, it was met with a shrug, excuses and an admonishment to be generous.
A cynic would say that politics played a role here. With President Donald Trump working overtime to make sure that SNAP funds were withheld from the people who need them, there was no sign that the state’s Republican leadership was going to make waves. There’s no telling that Trump is even aware that there’s a Republican gubernatorial primary brewing for June of next year in South Dakota. Still, the safest precaution for candidates hoping for his endorsement is to follow the big man’s lead for fear of incurring his wrath.
Gov. Larry Rhoden wrote a column about the impending SNAP crisis, blaming Democrats for the shutdown and asking South Dakotans to make donations to local food banks. He also repeated the oft-debunked claim that Democrats were holding government funding hostage in hopes of securing medical benefits for illegal immigrants.
SNAP benefits in South Dakota total $15 million a month, Rhoden explained, bemoaning the logistics of finding a way to replace the federal funds. In an interview with South Dakota Searchlight, the governor said that any money the state invested in replacing SNAP funds wouldn’t be reimbursed by the federal government.
The precedent for investing in an emergency without any hope of reimbursement was set by Rhoden’s predecessor. The National Guard deployments that Kristi Noem ordered to the southern border were made with the full knowledge that Texas wasn’t going to reimburse the state for costs that exceeded $1 million.
Since the state’s hands were tied, Rhoden used his column to encourage South Dakotans to be generous, dig deeper and give to their local food pantries. That’s big talk from someone sitting on $413 million in reserve funds.
The reserves are often referred to as money that the state has set aside for a rainy day. Yet with a veritable monsoon of hunger bearing down on 75,000 South Dakotans, the state’s umbrellas and slickers remained safely tucked away.
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The uncertainty of a federal government shutdown touches all citizens. Imagine how much better the state’s SNAP recipients would have felt if they knew that their government was doing something, anything, to recognize their plight.
No one would expect the state to reinvent the federal SNAP infrastructure that puts funds on payment cards that recipients can use to buy food. However, it wouldn’t take that much effort to pull together a loose coalition of state, local and tribal officials along with grocers and the people who run food pantries.
No one would expect the state to drop $15 million a month to replace the federal funds. However, someone in the coalition may have a million-dollar idea that makes it easier for grocers to give extra food to their local food banks. With the prospect of the state investing some money, it may be easier for food banks to ease their restrictions on how often someone can go to them for food.
Fortunately, the shutdown ended and federal funds flowed to SNAP accounts once again. However, as so many South Dakotans faced an uncertain future about how they were going to feed their families, it would have been comforting to know that their state government was doing something more substantial than just asking them to rely on the kindness of strangers.
