Nov. 7, 2025:
BOSTON (AP) — President Donald Trump ’s administration asked a federal appeals court Friday (Nov. 7, 2025) to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly SNAP food benefits amid a U.S. government shutdown, even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people.
The judge gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.
The court filing came even as Wisconsin said Friday that some SNAP recipients in the state already got their full November payments overnight on Thursday.
“We’ve received confirmation that payments went through, including members reporting they can now see their balances,” said Britt Cudaback, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Uncertainty remains for many SNAP recipients
The court wrangling prolonged weeks of uncertainty for the food program that serves about 1 in 8 Americans, mostly with lower incomes.
An individual can receive a monthly maximum food benefit of nearly $300 and a family of four up to nearly $1,000, although many receive less than that under a formula that takes into consideration their income. For many SNAP participants, it remains unclear exactly how much they will receive this month, and when they will receive it.
Jasmen Youngbey of Newark, New Jersey, waited in line Friday at a food pantry in the state’s largest city. As a single mom attending college, Youngbey said she relies on SNAP to help feed her 7-month-old and 4-year-old sons. But she said her account balance was at $0.
“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. It’s now possible,” she said.
Tihinna Franklin, a school bus guard who was waiting in the same line outside the United Community Corporation food pantry, said her SNAP account balance was at 9 cents and she was down to three items in her freezer. She typically relies on the roughly $290 a month in SNAP benefits to help feed her grandchildren.
“If I don’t get it, I won’t be eating,” she said. “My money I get paid for, that goes to the bills, rent, electricity, personal items. That is not fair to us as mothers and caregivers.”
The legal battle over SNAP takes another twist
Because of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration originally had said SNAP benefits would not be available in November. However, two judges ruled last week that the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because of the shutdown. One of those judges was U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who ordered the full payments Thursday.
In both cases, the judges ordered the government to use one emergency reserve fund containing more than $4.6 billion to pay for SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month.
On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the program and that the other money was needed to shore up other child hunger programs.
Thursday’s federal court order rejected the Trump administration’s decision to cover only 65% of the maximum monthly benefit, a decision that could have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.
In its court filing Friday, Trump’s administration contended that Thursday’s directive to fund full SNAP benefits runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend,” the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in its request to the court.
In response, attorneys for the cities and nonprofits challenging Trump’s administration said the government has plenty of available money and the court should “not allow them to further delay getting vital food assistance to individuals and families who need it now.”
States are taking different approaches to food aid
Some states said they stood ready to distribute SNAP money as quickly as possible.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said it directed a vendor servicing its SNAP electronic benefit cards to issue full SNAP benefits soon after the federal funding is received.
Benefits are provided to individuals on different days of the month. Those who normally receive benefits on the third, fifth or seventh of the month should receive their full SNAP allotment within 48 hours of funds becoming available, the Michigan agency said, and others should receive their full benefits on their regularly scheduled dates.
Meanwhile, North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services said that partial SNAP benefits were distributed Friday, based on the Trump administration’s previous decision. Officials in Illinois and North Dakota also said they were distributing partial November payments, starting as soon as Friday for some recipients.
In Missouri, where officials had been working on partial distribution, the latest court jostling raised new questions. A spokesperson for the state Department of Social Services said Friday that it is awaiting further guidance about how to proceed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP.
Amid the federal uncertainty, Delaware’s Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer said the state used its own funds Friday to provide the first of could be a weekly relief payment to SNAP recipients.
On Thursday, Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen downplayed the impact of paused SNAP benefits on families in his state, saying, “Nobody’s going to go hungry.” The multimillionaire said food pantries, churches and other charitable services would fill the gap.
Nov. 6, 2025, update:
UNDATED-AP- A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday (Nov. 6, 2025) to find the money to fully fund SNAP benefits for November, a decision that the administration promptly appealed.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. gave President Donald Trump’s administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though it’s unlikely the 42 million Americans — about 1 in 8, most of them in poverty — will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries nearly that quickly.
The order was in response to a challenge from cities and nonprofits complaining that the administration was only offering to cover 65% of the maximum benefit, a decision that would have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” McConnell said in a ruling from the bench after a brief hearing. “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.”
McConnell was one of two judges who ruled last week that the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because of the federal shutdown.
Shortly after the judges’ rulings, lawyers for the Trump administration filed a motion to appeal, contesting both Thursday’s decision and the earlier one last Saturday that ordered the federal government to use emergency reserves to fund the food program throughout November.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters the ruling was “absurd.”
“What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP,” Vance said at an unrelated White House event. “But in the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation.”
Nov. 6, 2025:
UNDATED-AP- President Donald Trump’s administration now says that SNAP food aid for November 2025 will be reduced less than originally announced, the latest in a political and legal saga that impacts how about 1 in 8 Americans can buy groceries.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a court filing late Wednesday (Nov. 5, 2025) that it caught an error in its earlier plan to reduce the maximum benefit by half and said that beneficiaries would instead get up to 65% of their usual assistance.
But some people will see deeper cuts, with some receiving no benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Aid Program for November. If the government shutdown continues into December, there is not a plan for funding at all.
The benefit cards could be loaded as soon as Friday in Louisiana and will take longer in most states.
Administration says the cuts won’t be as deep — after a series of twists and turns
What the nation’s nearly 42 million people who receive the food aid can expect has been in flux for weeks.
The Trump administration said last month that it would not pay benefits at all for November because of the federal shutdown. Last week, two judges ordered the government to pay at least partial benefits using an emergency fund. On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money — but that the required fund had enough to cover half the usual benefits for November.
The next day, Trump appeared to threaten not to pay the benefit s at all unless Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government. His press secretary later said that the partial benefits were being paid for November — and that it is future payments that are at risk if the shutdown continues.
Late Wednesday, the USDA, which runs the program, said in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island that it had done further analysis and found that the maximum benefit will be 65% of the usual amount.
Speaking at the Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts Thursday morning, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said the Trump administration is sending mixed messages: “Come on. You know, you’re going to partially fund food for Americans? You’re going let people starve?”
The benefit reduction math means most households will see cuts of more than 35%
While SNAP reductions like this have never come into play, there is a decades-old federal regulation for how they should be carried out.
Under the formula, benefits are reduced by 35% for households receiving the maximum amount. And households of the same size would have benefits reduced by the same dollar amount. For a family of three, the benefit would be reduced by $275. For a person living alone, it would drop by $105, according to an analysis by Ben Molin, who runs SNAP Screener, a website about benefits.
That means that the lowest-income families would be impacted the least. An analysis by the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that in the 12 months that ended in September 2024, just over one-third of beneficiaries received the maximum amount.
There is another wrinkle, which applies only to households with one or two people: Their minimum benefit would be $16. Some bigger households are in line to receive nothing for November.
Carmel Scaife, a former day care owner in Milwaukee who hasn’t been able to work since receiving multiple severe injuries in a car accident seven years ago, said she normally receives $130 a month from SNAP. She said that despite bargain hunting, that is not nearly enough for a month’s worth of groceries.
Scaife, 56, said that any cuts to her benefit will mean she will need to further tap her Social Security income for groceries. “That’ll take away from the bills that I pay,” she said. “But that’s the only way I can survive.”
When cards will be recharged depends on the state
States are working through the math and systems updates to get partial payments out to beneficiaries.
Louisiana officials have said they could start rolling by Friday, Connecticut and North Carolina by next week. And for some states, it’s unclear. Alabama’s Department of Human Resources said this week that it’s unclear how long it will take. “This will be a cumbersome process, including revised eligibility systems, state notification procedures, and ultimately delayed benefits,” Alabama’s Department of Human Resources said in statement this week.
The USDA warned in a court filing earlier in the week that it could take some states months to get the partial benefits onto debit cards used for the program.
Most states have increased funding for food banks, and some have launched programs to provide direct state-funded benefits to SNAP recipients.
Cities and nonprofits ask judge to force full funding
Lawyers for the USDA and the cities and nonprofit groups that sued to keep funding rolling in November were expected to make their cases at a hearing on a request for a judge to require full SNAP funding for the month.
The groups said in a court filing in federal court in Rhode Island that partial benefits would not “adequately remedy the harm.”
Democratic attorneys general and governors filed a motion in their case in federal court in Massachusetts with a similar request for full funding.
The government said it is using other funding to make sure child nutrition programs can keep running through the shutdown.
“It cannot be arbitrary and capricious for USDA to decline to raid an entirely different program, to the tune of billions of dollars,” the agency said in a filing, “in the mere hope that Congress will fix the ensuing deficit through the general appropriations process.”
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