As millions of Americans face losing food assistance this weekend because of the federal government shutdown, a growing number of people are expressing concern about what’s happening — including actor Kendrick Sampson.
Sampson is best known to fans for his roles in Insecure and How to Get Away with Murder. He’ll next be seen in the Lifetime movie Eric Jerome Dickey’s Friends and Lovers, which debuts Nov. 15.
At the red carpet premiere in West Hollywood, California for Lifetime’s fall romance films on Tuesday Oct. 28, Sampson said he’s appalled by the thought of people losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
“A lot of people are gonna get hurt, and people are already hurting,” Sampson told Urban Hollywood 411.
The actor encouraged people to step up and help those in need during these challenging times.
“Now more than ever, we have to take some of the lessons that we’ve learned during covid, and take care of each other, mutual aid, how to build worker power, how to resist, and not just accept the way things are,” he said.
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Sampson is very civically engaged. We’ve previously interviewed him on the picket line in Hollywood during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and in downtown L.A. in 2020 at a Black Lives Matter protest.
This week on the red carpet, the actor said he considers the Trump administration “one of the most abusive governments that has ever existed.”
The Trump administration blames Democrats for food stamp crisis.
“Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program… Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads a statement on the USDA website.
But an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released earlier today showed more people believe Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for the government shutdown than Democrats.
The poll said 45% blamed Republicans, while 33% said Democrats are responsible. The other 22% percent of respondents weren’t sure.
The federal government funds the anti-hunger SNAP program through the Farm Bill. The benefits, known to many as food stamps, are administered by the states via electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards.
But the USDA website warns “there will be no benefits issued November 01,” due to the shutdown.
A July 2025 report by the USDA said 42 million people, or 12 percent of residents, received monthly SNAP benefits in 2024.
As a hunger crisis looms, the Trump administration said in an Oct. 24 memo obtained by the Associated Press it would not use $5 billion in contingency funds to make sure benefits go out in November.
The document blamed said benefits would be paid on time “if not for Congressional Democrats blocking government funding.”
The four states with the highest percentage of people on SNAP are Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Oregon, along with Washington, D.C., according to the USDA.
New Mexico topped the list with 21.2 percent of residents getting assistance, while Utah had the lowest percentage of at 4.8 percent.
The average SNAP benefit is about $180 per month, per person, or about $6 per day, Mackenzie Libbey of Community Legal Services told CBS Philadelphia.
It’s not just families that will be hurt if SNAP benefits are paused this weekend. One grocery store owner in the Baltimore area said nearly half of his business comes from people on government assistance.
“I get probably 47% of my business based on SNAP benefits, so it will have a devastating impact on my business and small businesses alike,” Dwayne Clark, owner of Clark Bey’s Grocery and Deli, told WBAL-TV.
Here in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom joined two dozen other states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for potentially suspending SNAP payments.
“While Donald Trump parades around the world trying to repair the economic damage he’s done with his incompetence, he’s denying food to millions of Americans who will go hungry next month,” Newsom said in a press release.
“It’s cruel and speaks to his basic lack of humanity. He doesn’t care about the people of this country, only himself,” Newsom added.
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