EDITOR’S NOTE: The Supreme Court later Friday temporarily paused a lower court ruling that required the Trump administration to fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November. The administration had filed an emergency request hours after the US Department of Agriculture told states that it was working to comply with the ruling.
The US Department of Agriculture announced Friday it is working to fully fund food stamp benefits for November to comply with a federal court order, and the process should be completed later in the day.
Several states quickly pounced on the news, saying the money should start flowing to recipients in coming days.
The USDA’s guidance, posted on the agency’s website, is the latest step in a weekslong saga that has threatened vital food assistance for nearly 42 million Americans amid the federal government shutdown. A federal judge on Thursday directed the agency to provide full benefits, which the Trump administration quickly appealed.
The USDA told states last month that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as food stamps are formally known, had run out of money so November’s benefits could not be distributed. The decision prompted two lawsuits, with two federal judges ruling that the agency must at least tap into emergency funds to provide partial benefits for this month or, at its discretion, use other revenue to fully fund November’s allotments.
The agency opted to fund partial benefits, but warned it could take weeks or months for some states to recalculate the allotments and distribute the assistance. That led the plaintiffs in one case to argue that the judge should require the USDA to fully fund the benefits to get the money out the door quickly.
It’s not yet known what the administration’s compliance will mean for the legal challenge pending before US District Judge John McConnell, who ordered the administration on Thursday to make full SNAP payments by the end of Friday.
Earlier Friday, the administration asked a Boston-based appeals court to halt McConnell’s order, but the appeals court had not issued a decision by the time the administration said publicly that it was complying with his directive.
Roughly 1 in 8 Americans receive food stamps, with payments distributed on a staggered schedule throughout the month. Households receive about $350 a month, on average.
Full benefits start to flow
Just when food stamp beneficiaries will receive their assistance depends on where they live. Some states are expected to issue benefits immediately, while others may require a little more time.
Pennsylvania residents who should have already received their SNAP benefits this month will start seeing their full allotments hit their electronic benefit transfer cards on Friday, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced at a press conference. State officials worked quickly after McConnell’s ruling to issue benefits.
“We are hoping that by this evening, by midnight or so, that all of those individuals who were owed money over the first week or so of this month, who hadn’t gotten it from the federal administration, are going to get their money,” Shapiro said.
West Virginia also notified SNAP recipients on Friday afternoon that the state is sending full payments for November due to the court order.
New Yorkers can expect to receive their SNAP benefits starting Sunday, according to a statement from Gov. Kathy Hochul. And Massachusetts residents will start receiving their delayed benefits as early as Saturday, Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.
Meanwhile, North Carolina started distributing partial benefits to more than 586,000 households on Friday morning in line with the USDA’s guidance earlier this week on providing partial benefits. Recipients could see their remaining allotments hit their cards possibly as soon as this weekend, the state Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release.
“We will keep working to help folks put food on the table during this challenging time,” Gov. Josh Stein said.
Food stamp benefits total about $8.2 billion in November, with other expenses pushing the monthly cost up to nearly $9 billion.
The two federal judges said last week that the USDA was required to tap into the program’s roughly $5.3 billion contingency fund, while McConnell ordered the agency on Thursday to also transfer additional unused tariff revenue used to support child nutrition programs in order to pay full SNAP benefits for November.
In its guidance, the agency did not specify how it was funding November’s allotments.
Billions ‘in the metaphorical couch cushions’
It’s unclear what Friday’s announcement from the USDA will mean for the fast-moving legal fracas around the food benefits program. As of Friday afternoon, neither side in the Rhode Island case had notified either court of the development.
Just after McConnell made his decision on Thursday, the administration appealed it to the First Circuit. By Friday morning, lawyers for the administration were pressing the court, which is stacked with appointees of Democratic presidents, to quickly put the directive on hold.
They argued that McConnell overstepped his authority when he issued his order, which they said “has thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations and may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend,” they wrote. “There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.”
McConnell’s new order came after he said the administration had not worked fast enough to ensure at least partial benefits reached millions of the program’s recipients and that it had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it decided against providing the full benefits this month.
The coalition of cities, nonprofits, unions and small businesses that brought the legal challenge late last month urged the First Circuit to swiftly reject the administration’s emergency bid. In court papers filed Friday afternoon, their attorneys emphasized the on-the-ground impact of any potential intervention by the court, noting it’s been nearly a week since recipients began missing payments for November.
“Time is of the essence,” they wrote. “Plaintiffs and the public will be severely and irreparably harmed if defendants are granted a stay, even a brief one.”
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