The Supreme Court lets Trump pause full SNAP payments
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday issued a temporary order halting a lower court’s decision that required the Trump administration to provide full food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans this month — a move that, for now, favors the administration in a fast-moving legal dispute that has become one of the defining flashpoints of the ongoing government shutdown.
As a result, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will not immediately need to comply with the lower court’s directive to transfer $4 billion to the nation’s main food assistance program by the end of the day. Though short-term, the ruling raises uncertainty for millions of people depending on SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) to afford groceries.
Jackson’s order does not settle the larger legal dispute at the heart of the case. The Trump administration has already indicated that it plans to draw from the program’s contingency reserves to partially fund benefits. Her “administrative stay” merely pauses enforcement of the lower court’s order, allowing an appellate court additional time to consider the case.
Jackson, who oversees emergency appeals from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals, is the justice responsible for handling the matter.
The court battle over food stamps has become a major pressure point among all three branches of government during the record-length shutdown. SNAP, which supports roughly 42 million Americans, represents one of the clearest and most immediate ways the budget impasse is affecting the public.
It remains uncertain how the case will ultimately shape the future of billions in federal SNAP funding.
Background on the lower-court order
The Trump administration turned to the Supreme Court for emergency relief only hours after the USDA had informed states it was working to comply with US District Judge John McConnell’s ruling from Rhode Island, which required full program funding for November.
That quick reversal has added fresh confusion over when — or whether — beneficiaries will receive their full payments.
Earlier on Friday, the administration filed a similar request with a federal appeals court in Boston, which had not yet ruled by the time USDA circulated its guidance. That guidance said the department expected to complete the process of making full November benefits available later the same day.
By Friday night, however, the appeals court issued a short order declining to pause the payments while it reviewed the case, saying it would move “as quickly as possible.”