Trump administration to partially fund SNAP this month after judges order use of emergency reserves

The USDA, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, had planned to freeze payments starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer continue funding it during the federal government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a key part of the country’s social safety net. It costs more than $8 billion a month nationally. The government says the emergency fund it will use is $4.65 billion, enough to cover about half of regular benefits.

The depletion of the fund could potentially pave the way for a similar situation in December if the lockdown is not resolved by then.

It’s not clear exactly how much recipients will receive, nor how quickly the value will appear on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. November payments have already been delayed for millions of people.

“The Trump administration has the means to fully fund this program, and it is their decision not to let millions of Americans go hungry and wait longer for relief while the government takes the additional steps needed to partially fund this program,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who led a coalition of Democratic state officials in one of the lawsuits that forced the funding, said in a statement.

How will SNAP beneficiaries manage?

People receiving benefits are trying to figure out how to stretch their grocery money even further.

Corinna Betancourt, 40, who lives in Glendale, Arizona, already uses the food bank occasionally to get groceries for herself and her three children, ages 8 to 11. As SNAP benefits are reduced and delayed, she expects to use the food bank more and find ways to expand what she has even more.

But she worries there won’t be enough for her children to eat on about $400 this month instead of about $800. “We always make things work somehow, somehow,” she said.

In Camden, New Jersey, 41-year-old Jamal Brown, who was paralyzed after a series of strokes and lives on a fixed income, said his family members asked him for a list of groceries he needed so they could stock them.

But not everyone has this help.

“How do you expect to live a healthy life if you don’t eat the right things?” he asked. “If you don’t have access to food stamps, you’ll go for the cheapest thing you can afford.”

Details on how the payments will be rolled out are yet to come

The administration said it would provide details to states on Monday about calculating the partial benefit for each family. The process of loading SNAP cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and suppliers, can take up to two weeks in some states. But the USDA warned in a lawsuit that it could take weeks or even months for states to make all the changes in the system to send out reduced subsidies. The average monthly benefit is usually around $190 per person.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference that it will take his state about a week to load benefit cards once funding is available.

“These are hungry people, and every day matters,” Bonta said.

The USDA said last month that November benefits would not be paid due to the federal government shutdown. That left food banks, state governments and the nearly 42 million Americans receiving aid scrambling to find ways to ensure access to groceries.

The liberal group democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, said it was considering legal options to force full funding of SNAP.

Other prominent Democrats are calling on the government to do it alone.

“USDA has the authority to fully fund SNAP and must do so immediately. Anything else is unacceptable,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media.

State governments are getting involved

Most states have boosted aid to food banks, and some are creating systems to reload benefit cards with state taxpayer dollars. The threat of delay has also led to lawsuits.

Federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled separately but similarly on Friday, telling the government in response to lawsuits filed by Democratic state officials, cities and nonprofits that it was required to use a single emergency fund to pay for the program, at least in part. They gave the government the option of using additional money to fully fund the program and a deadline of Monday to make a decision.

The USDA has chosen not to tap other emergency funds to ensure there is no gap in child nutrition programs for the remainder of this fiscal year, which runs through September 2026, Patrick Penn, USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said in a lawsuit Monday.

Advocates and beneficiaries say stopping food aid will force people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills. A majority of states have announced more or accelerated funding for food banks or new ways to load at least some benefits onto SNAP debit cards.

New Mexico and Rhode Island officials said Monday that some SNAP recipients received money over the weekend from their emergency programs. Officials in Delaware are telling beneficiaries that their benefits will not be available until at least November 7.

To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a household’s net income after certain expenses cannot exceed the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that’s about $32,000 a year.