U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced a plan Tuesday to ensure that low-income Americans have access to the nutrition they need, despite the lack of an appropriations bill passed by Congress. The plan provides full benefits for participants in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the month of February, even if the government shutdown continues.

When USDA’s funding expired on Dec. 21, 2018, SNAP benefits for January were fully funded. States have already received that money and have been distributing it to participants. Since the lapse in appropriations, USDA has been reviewing options available to it for funding February benefits without an additional appropriation from Congress.

“At President [Donald] Trump’s direction, we have been working with the Administration on this solution. It works and is legally sound, and we want to assure states and SNAP recipients that the benefits for February will be provided,” Perdue said. “Our motto here at USDA has been to ‘do right and feed everyone.’ With this solution, we’ve got the ‘feed everyone’ part handled, and I believe that the plan we’ve constructed takes care of the ‘do right’ part as well.”

To protect SNAP participants’ access for February, USDA is working with states to issue February benefits earlier than usual. USDA will rely on a provision of the just-expired continuing resolution (CR), which provides an appropriation for programs like SNAP and child nutrition to incur obligations for program operations within 30 days of the CR’s expiration.

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USDA will be reaching out to states to instruct them to request early issuance of SNAP benefits for February. States will have until Jan. 20 to request and implement the early issuance. Once the early issuances are made, the February benefits will be made available to SNAP participants at that time.

USDA has also ensured that the other major nutrition assistance programs have sufficient funding to continue operations into February. The child nutrition programs, including school meals and after-school programs, have funding available to continue operations through March. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children has prior-year funding, which USDA will begin to provide to states this week to facilitate February benefits. Other Food & Nutrition Service programs, which provide critical assistance to our nation’s food banks, the elderly and tribal nations, may continue to utilize grant funding provided prior to the lapse in appropriations. Commodity deliveries to those programs will continue.

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Once these early issuances are made, the February benefits will become available to SNAP participants at that time. The monthly issuance for SNAP for February is estimated to be approximately $4.8 billion, and the state administrative expense is estimated at about $350 million, for a total need of approximately $5.1 billion.