The nation’s main food aid program serves one in eight Americans each month.
Published on November 3, 2025
The administration of US President Donald Trump said the US government will partially fund food aid for low-income Americans after two judges ruled the program must continue amid a weak government shutdown.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the nation’s main food assistance program, which serves one in eight Americans each month — was scheduled to be frozen on November 1, after the USDA said on October 10 that it would not be able to fund the program if the shutdown continued.
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On Friday, federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island issued separate but similar rulings that required the federal government to cover benefits by drawing from emergency funds.
SNAP, known colloquially as food stamps, costs more than $8 billion to deploy each month and covers about $190, or $356, of groceries per household. Interest is usually charged on debit cards.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Rhode Island court, the USDA agreed to “fulfill its obligation to spend the full amount of SNAP emergency funds today.”
The administration will use a fund totaling about $5 billion, but not other funds that would allow it to fully fund SNAP, the filing said.
Since the card loading process could take up to two weeks, it’s not yet clear when recipients might start receiving money again — nor how much money will ultimately be included.
The justices gave the Trump administration until Monday to address how SNAP is partially funded, with U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston ruling that suspending the program was “unlawful” and “wrongful.”
“This court has now made clear that defendants must use these emergency funds as necessary for SNAP,” she added.
In Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell reached a similar conclusion and asked the administration for an update on Monday, saying in a virtual hearing that it was “unarguable that irreparable harm would begin to occur” if SNAP was paused.
The rulings were in response to separate appeals of the Trump administration’s suspension of benefits.
Trump had initially claimed on his platform Social Truth on Friday that the justices’ decisions were “conflicting” and used the potential loss of SNAP to take a jab at “radical Democrats.”
Meanwhile, right-wing misinformation about food stamps has appeared online in recent days, with one widely circulated infographic claiming that “Afghan,” “Somali,” and “Iraqi” people were the biggest beneficiaries of SNAP.
In fact, USDA data shows that white people use SNAP the most, accounting for more than 35% of recipients.
