Supreme Court Allows Trump to Pause Full SNAP Benefits
By Staff, Agencies
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday temporarily halted a lower court ruling that required the Trump administration to provide full food stamp benefits to tens of millions of Americans, siding with the administration for now in a legal battle that has become central to the ongoing government shutdown.
The upshot is that the US Department of Agriculture will not have to immediately honor a lower court order that required it to transfer $4 billion to the key food assistance program by the end of the day.
The decision, while temporary, could put at risk the full benefits for millions of Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to feed themselves and their families.
The order does not resolve the underlying legal questions raised by the case – and the Trump administration has already committed to using the program’s contingency fund to partially pay benefits. Rather, Jackson’s “administrative stay” freezes any additional action by the administration to give an appeals court additional time to review the case.
Jackson is the justice assigned to handle emergency appeals from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The food stamp dispute has become a key flashpoint among all three branches during the prolonged government shutdown, highlighting one of its clearest and most tangible effects — aid for nearly 42 million Americans.
It’s unclear how the case will ultimately impact the billions of dollars spent in federal SNAP funding.
The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court just hours after the USDA began moving to comply with a judge’s order to fully fund food stamp benefits.
This latest legal move has injected more uncertainty into whether food stamp recipients would see their full allotments anytime soon.
The administration’s emergency appeal to a Boston appeals court came Friday morning, but the court had not acted before the USDA said full November payments would go out that day. Friday night, the court refused to pause the payments while reviewing the case.
In its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the administration said, “Such a funding lapse is a crisis. But it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure and one that can only be solved through congressional action.”
“The district court’s ruling,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court, “is untenable at every turn.”
The administration moved to appeal McConnell’s order after he ruled on Thursday that the government had to provide full SNAP benefits for November, instead of issuing only partial benefits as he had mandated days earlier.
Before the latest legal twist, several states had rushed to start issuing full SNAP payments to their residents. But that has caused problems, according to the administration’s filing to the Supreme Court.
Sauer told the court Wisconsin requested full benefits be loaded onto residents’ EBT cards, but the USDA, not yet ready to comply with McConnell’s order, denied it, causing the state to overdraw its credit by $20 million.
Similarly, Kansas issued full benefits worth nearly $32 million to approximately 86,000 households in the state, Sauer said.
He added that states slow to issue benefits will be unable to receive funding for partial payments under McConnell’s earlier order.
Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said Friday night that, following a Supreme Court’s order and USDA guidance, the state sent full November SNAP benefits to all eligible residents—many of whom are children, seniors, or people with disabilities struggling to afford food.
Other states have also promised beneficiaries would start receiving their full allotments as soon as Friday or over the weekend.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that residents will begin receiving their full November SNAP benefits on EBT cards Friday, with all back payments expected by midnight.
Meanwhile, the governors of Maryland and New York said beneficiaries could expect to start seeing their benefits over the weekend.
The food stamp program has been in legal limbo since last month, when officials said recipients would not receive their payments for November due to the lapse in appropriations for the government.
The decision sparked two lawsuits, and last week two federal judges ordered the agency to use contingency or other funds to provide partial or full November benefits.
The agency provided partial benefits but warned some states could take weeks or months to distribute them. Plaintiffs in Rhode Island asked Judge McConnell to order full funding for faster delivery.
Judge McConnell ruled the administration acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” by delaying benefits, saying, “People have gone without for too long… Not making payments for even another day is simply unacceptable.”
Under McConnell’s ruling, the government was required to transfer additional unused tariff revenue used to support child nutrition programs in order to pay full SNAP benefits for November.
