As court-ordered over the weekend, the Trump administration is tapping emergency reserve funds to pay out partial SNAP benefits for the month of November, despite there being funds available to pay full benefits.
The Trump administration announced Monday that it would be funding partial payments this month from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps. The decision, which follows a pair of orders from two federal judges, appears designed to continue exacting pain from the country's poorest individuals and families in furtherance of the ongoing political game of chicken between Republicans and Democrats over the shutdown.
As the Associated Press reports, the Department of Agriculture has committed to tapping one emergency fund that has $4.65 billion in it, and will only pay about 50% of recipients' usual benefit amounts.
Luckily for SNAP recipients living in San Francisco, additional benefits are being funded through a public-private partnership between the city and the Crankstart Foundation. Those benefits are being distributed on debit cards starting this week.
"The Trump administration has the means to fund this program in full, and their decision not to will leave millions of Americans hungry and waiting even longer for relief as government takes the additional steps needed to partially fund this program," said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, in a statement.
Campbell led a coalition of attorneys general — including California — who sued the administration last week over the false claim that it could not afford to cover November benefits from the SNAP program. The Department of Agriculture had initially committed to paying out November benefits when the shutdown began, the officials said, and it was demonstrably false that contingency funds didn't exist.
US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston ruled in a written order Friday that the administration's action had been "unlawful," and saying it had to fund the SNAP program. In Providence, Rhode Island, US District Judge John J. McConnell ruled similarly but separately from the bench in a case brought by a coalition of cities and nonprofit groups. Both judges were appointees of President Obama.
The federal judges' orders left open the possibility that full or partial benefits could be paid, and the admiinistration has opted to pay only half of the food assistance that low-income households are accustomed to, and it remains unclear when EBT cards will be refilled.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee that oversees the SNAP program, issued a statement Friday saying, “The administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need, despite knowing that it is legally required to do so."
Democrats have maintained that in addition to the $4.65 billion fund, another $23 billion in emergency funds is available to cover the program.
Additionally on Monday, as the New York Times reports, the administration said that another food assistance program for low-income mothers and children, WIC, would be funded through November with $450 million in customs revenue.
Previously: Bonta and Newsom Call Out Heartlessness of Trump Administration In Announcing Lawsuit Over SNAP Benefits
Top image: An EBT sign is displayed on the window of a grocery store on October 30, 2025 in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and other assistance are set to stop on November 1st amid a federal government shutdown that has been going on for 29 days and is the second-longest shutdown in the nation's history. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for extra emergency funds and personnel to be deployed, as SNAP payments will be suspended. About 42 million Americans are expected to lose access to their benefits. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
