Supreme Court Overturns Judge’s Order on SNAP Benefits
The Supreme Court has made a ruling against a federal judge’s directive that required the Trump administration to provide the full amount of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for November.
This decision followed an appeal from the Trump administration, which sought to pause a ruling by U.S. District Judge John McConnell that mandated the government to disburse complete SNAP benefits by Friday, as noted by the Associated Press.
According to reports, the judge’s order required the Republican administration to issue payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on schedule. However, the administration petitioned the appeals court to hold off on a court order that involved distributing funds exceeding what was available in the emergency fund. They requested to maintain the scheduled partial SNAP payments instead.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Supreme Court suspended McConnell’s order to afford the Court of Appeals some time to evaluate the legal points raised by the government. Notably, she did not make any determination regarding the legality of the actions taken by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had earlier communicated its intention to provide full SNAP benefits for November. According to a memo, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) stated it is “working toward implementation of full benefits in November 2025” to comply with the aforementioned court order.
The memo also indicated that FNS was aiming to finalize the process “later today” to ensure the availability of SNAP funds.
“FNS is working to implement full benefit issuance in November 2025 in accordance with the Rhode Island District Court’s November 6, 2025 order,” the memo declared. “Later today, FNS will complete the necessary processes to make funds available to support the subsequent submission of the complete issuance file to the EBT processor.”
This ruling comes in the wake of about 42 million SNAP beneficiaries not receiving their benefits at the start of the month due to a prolonged government shutdown lasting 38 days.
In light of McConnell’s decision, multiple states, including Pennsylvania, Oregon, and California, have declared plans to issue full SNAP benefits to their recipients, as reported by NPR.
