A federal judge in Rhode Island has directed the Trump administration to fully fund November’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, rejecting a plan that would have given households only a portion of their usual support during the ongoing federal shutdown. U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ruled Thursday that the administration must secure enough funding to issue full payments, giving officials until Friday to comply. However, even with the order in place, it may still take time before the 42 million SNAP recipients—roughly one in eight Americans, most of whom live in low-income households—see the funds added to their benefit cards. The ruling came after several cities and nonprofit groups challenged the administration’s proposal to cover just 65% of the maximum SNAP benefit for November.
Under that plan, some eligible households would have received no assistance at all. McConnell criticized the administration for failing to account for the real-life impact of reduced payments. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer,” he said from the bench. The judge had previously ruled, along with a second federal judge, that the government could not skip the November payments entirely. The administration has already filed an appeal of Thursday’s decision.
