BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services says March SNAP benefits will be available early to help families who have been "stretching" their benefits since January because of the federal government shutdown.

Recipients who would usually receive benefits between March 1-4 will now get them on the first day of the month. Those who would get their benefits between March 5-14 will instead receive them on the second day of the month.

The state also issued February benefits early in January while the federal shutdown was still going on. Since then, officials said there were concerns that recipients were using up their benefits too quickly rather than rationing them properly.