How will a government shutdown affect food assistance?

It seems likely that the Government will shut down tomorrow due to the gridlock over the federal budget - some of us remember all too well when this happened back in the 1990's! 

USDA's Food and Nutition Service's website has a contingency plan posted -  SNAP benefits will be available but WIC funding is doubtful.   

Here are the key paragraphs.  USDA has indicated that the web site will not be operational during a shutdown, so if you work with either of these programs, you may want to print now any reference materials you may need!

• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will continue operations and eligible households will still receive monthly benefits for October. The authority to make October benefit payments comes from the Recovery Act, through which Congress provided "such sums as are necessary" to finance the SNAP benefit provided for in the Recovery Act.  In addition, about $2 billion in contingency funding will be available and could be used to support State Administrative activities essential to continue the program and issue and process benefits. These contingency funds were provided in the FY 2013 appropriation and do not expire until the end of FY 2014.

• No additional federal funds would be available to support the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)'s clinical services, food benefits and administrative costs. States may have some funds available from infant formula rebates or other sources, including spend forward authority, to continue operations for a week or so, but States would likely be unable to sustain operations for a longer period. Contingency funds will be available to help States - but even this funding would not fully mitigate a shortfall for the entire month of October.

•  The Child Nutrition (CN) Programs, including School Lunch, School Breakfast, the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program (CACFP), Summer Food Service and Special Milk will continue operations into October.

•  No additional funds would be available to support the Commodity Assistance Programs (CAP) including the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and administrative funding.  While no new funding will be able, existing inventories can still be used.  In addition, we expect that if and when funding is provided through a Continuing Resolution, it will be available retroactively, which would allow programs to cover their administrative costs retroactively.