Late on Friday, November 7, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into the escalating legal and political battle over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), temporarily blocking a lower court order that would have required the Trump administration to fully fund November's food aid payments amid an ongoing government shutdown. The move, delivered by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, means millions of Americans who rely on SNAP—roughly 1 in 8 people nationwide—face continued uncertainty about when, or if, their full benefits will arrive.
The case, which has unfolded at breakneck speed, centers on whether the Trump administration can be compelled to use $4 billion from Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935 to cover November SNAP benefits. According to ABC News, the administration has insisted those funds are earmarked for other nutrition programs, particularly the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which requires about $3 billion each month. SNAP, by contrast, typically needs around $8.5 billion monthly to operate at full strength.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered the government to pay out the full SNAP amount by Friday, November 8, rejecting the administration’s plan to cover only about 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. In his sharply worded ruling, McConnell accused the administration of "withholding SNAP benefits for political reasons," and declared, "People have gone without for too long, not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable." The Trump administration, however, fired back in court filings, arguing that President Trump was merely "stating a fact" about the lack of appropriated funds, not using SNAP as political leverage. "The district court also accused the President of bad faith for declaring that full SNAP benefits would not resume until the government reopens. But that was just stating a fact—the appropriation has lapsed, and it is up to Congress to solve this crisis," the administration wrote.
After the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to immediately intervene on Friday morning, the administration turned to the Supreme Court. Solicitor General John Sauer, in an urgent petition, warned of "imminent, irreparable harms" if the government were forced to transfer $4 billion by nightfall, and requested "an immediate administrative stay of the orders pending the resolution of this application by no later than 9:30pm this evening." Sauer also argued in filings that "this unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers," contending that the judiciary was usurping both legislative and executive authority in ordering SNAP benefits to be fully funded.
Justice Jackson, who handles emergency matters from the 1st Circuit, issued her order late Friday, pausing the requirement to distribute full SNAP payments until the appeals court rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause. Her order is set to remain in effect until 48 hours after the appeals court issues its decision, giving the administration time to return to the Supreme Court if necessary. As reported by The Associated Press, Jackson’s intervention could prevent additional states from initiating full payments, even as others had already begun processing benefits under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Indeed, the flurry of court orders and appeals has resulted in a patchwork of responses across the country. By Friday, at least nine states—including Wisconsin, California, Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Hawaii, and Vermont—had either distributed or were preparing to distribute full November SNAP benefits. According to AP, Wisconsin distributed over $104 million in SNAP benefits to about 337,000 households by midnight Friday, while Kansas issued more than $31.6 million to 86,000 households. Oregon’s Governor Tina Kotek said state employees "worked through the night" to ensure families could access benefits, and Hawaii’s Department of Human Services moved quickly to process payments before the Supreme Court could intervene.
Other states, such as Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Connecticut, indicated that full benefits would be available by the weekend or early the following week. Some, like North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Dakota, distributed partial November payments while awaiting further federal guidance. In Delaware, where the uncertainty was especially acute, Governor Matt Meyer announced the state would use its own funds to provide the first of what could become weekly relief payments for SNAP recipients.
But as the legal wrangling continued, millions of Americans faced the prospect of empty accounts and uncertain meals. Jasmen Youngbey of Newark, New Jersey, told AP she waited in line at a food pantry on Friday. As a single mother and college student, Youngbey said she relies on SNAP to help feed her two young sons, but her account balance was at zero until later that day. "Not everybody has cash to pull out and say, ‘OK, I’m going to go and get this,’ especially with the cost of food right now," she said.
The Trump administration has maintained throughout that using Section 32 funds for SNAP would force the government to "starve Peter to feed Paul," as Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate put it in an appeal cited by the Los Angeles Times. Shumate argued that the only way to comply with the lower court’s order would be to "raid school-lunch money"—a claim that Judge McConnell flatly rejected in his decision. "This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations," McConnell wrote. "Far from being concerned with Child Nutrition funding, these statements make clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes." McConnell further noted that WIC is "an entirely separate program from the Child Nutrition Programs," undermining the administration’s argument that funding one necessarily drains the other.
Meanwhile, the USDA told states on Friday that it was "working toward paying full November SNAP benefits," and that "later today, FNS will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor." Despite the agency’s assurance, the process has been "confusing and chaotic" and "rife with errors," according to a brief filed by 25 states and the District of Columbia, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. Many states’ systems require complete reprogramming to handle the partial payments initially proposed by the administration, causing further delays and uncertainty for recipients.
The stakes are high: more than 16 million children rely on SNAP benefits, and close to 30 million are fed through the National School Lunch Program. The Trump administration’s position has drawn criticism from both sides of the political aisle, with many lawmakers—Republican and Democrat alike—calling for an emergency stopgap to prevent further harm to vulnerable families. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, however, blasted the circuit court’s decision as "judicial activism at its worst," writing on social media that "a single district court in Rhode Island should not be able to seize center stage in the shutdown, seek to upend political negotiations that could produce swift political solutions for SNAP and other programs, and dictate its own preferences for how scarce federal funds should be spent."
As the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to issue a more permanent ruling, the Supreme Court’s temporary pause has left states, families, and advocates in limbo. The outcome will not only determine whether millions can put food on the table this month, but will also set a precedent for how the federal government manages essential safety net programs during times of political crisis.
For now, the nation waits—watching the courts, watching Congress, and hoping that the next decision will bring clarity and relief to those who need it most.
