The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower court's ruling ordering the Trump administration to fully fund food benefits for millions of hungry Americans, throwing the key program into further chaos as the government shutdown drags on.
In a two-page order issued Friday night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson granted the administration a temporary reprieve from paying full food aid benefits for November. A district court had earlier ordered they be paid by the end of Friday.
The stay will last for 48 hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit resolves the administration’s request for a longer-term block as its appeal moves through that court. Jackson also noted her expectation for the First Circuit to act with “dispatch.”
In the meantime, the fate of 42 million Americans who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, program hangs in the balance.
"The Supreme Court just granted our administrative stay in this case. Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda," Attorney General Pam Bondi posted to X.
The Trump Administration has argued it can’t fund the program for November because of the government shutdown, which is nearing its sixth week. After being ordered to act by a district judge, the administration asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to block that order. The appeals court declined to immediately block the ruling while it considers the appeal, prompting the administration to ask the Supreme Court to block it.
“As explained, the government will be forced to make an irretrievable transfer of billions of dollars by the end of today, absent this Court’s intervention,” wrote U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer to the Supreme Court. “And the harms of that decision will vest this evening, regardless of what this Court ultimately does with respect to the flawed decisions below. An administrative stay is badly needed.”
Nonetheless, the Department of Agriculture, or USDA, which distributes SNAP benefits, moved on Friday to distribute the aid and some states -- including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts -- said they would begin distributing it.
In a statement earlier Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had directed state agencies to provide “full federal SNAP benefits for November,” and that she expected the first wave of New Yorkers to have access to those benefits this weekend.
New Jersey announced Friday it has already issued full SNAP benefits to eligible residents on the basis of Thursday’s lower court ruling.
But the Trump administration isn’t done fighting an order from a Rhode Island judge to fully fund the program, despite the shutdown. The petition to the Supreme Court followed the denial of a stay from an appeals court on Friday evening that kept the lower judge’s order in place.
The fight over SNAP has moved to the center of the political and legal wrangling over the shutdown, which is approaching its sixth week.
As the court case played out, USDA Under Secretary Patrick Penn told program administrators in a Friday memo that the department had restarted the process of making money available to food stamp recipients by electronic transfers overseen by state agencies.
People have gone without for too long.
“People have gone without for too long,” McConnell told government lawyers at a hearing Thursday. “Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.”
McConnell strongly rebuked the administration for ignoring his original order to restart payments to recipients, noting they include 16 million children at risk of going hungry.