The Supreme Court upended orders from a federal judge requiring USDA to make full SNAP benefits for November available on Friday.
In an order Friday evening, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson administratively stayed orders by a federal judge in Rhode Island that would have forced USDA to use its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program contingency fund and other nutrition funding to cover the full benefits for this month.
The court said the stay would last for 48 hours after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston issues a ruling on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal, which the high court said “the First Circuit is expected to issue with dispatch.”
The 1st Circuit had upheld the orders from U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island.
Specifically, the Supreme Court’s order posted on its website Friday night said the district court’s orders are stayed pending the outcome in the 1st Circuit “or further order of Justice [Ketanji Brown Jackson] or of the court.” The case was assigned to Jackson.
Earlier Friday, an appeals court denied the Trump administration’s motion for a stay of a lower court order requiring USDA to make full SNAP funding for November available to states Friday.
The Trump administration promptly filed an application to the Supreme Court asking for a stay of the district court's order by 9:30 p.m. Friday evening.
The appeals court decision came hours after USDA had told states it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances” to comply with an order from a federal judge in Rhode Island.
In a brief order, the 1st Circuit noted that the government was asking for an administrative stay as well a stay based on the merits of the case.
“We note that in its stay briefing to us, the government has not disputed that it may under 7 U.S.C. § 2257 use the Section 32 fund to cover the provision of SNAP benefits for the month of November,” the court said.
“Because the [Rhode Island judge’s] November 6 orders provide the same relief, the government would need to establish that it is entitled to a stay of both orders in order to receive the relief that it requests from being required to make full SNAP payments by utilizing available Section 32 funds in combination with the [SNAP] contingency funds.”
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The court said the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal “remains pending, and we intend to issue a decision on that motion as quickly as possible.”
The Agriculture Department told states earlier Friday it was planning to make full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit payments Friday, even as government lawyers sought to block the lower court order requiring the department to do so.
The Food and Nutrition Service "is working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances in compliance with the November 6, 2025, order from the District Court of Rhode Island," a memo to USDA regional SNAP directors and state agencies says.
"Later today, FNS will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor."
An emergency motion filed Friday by the government said the district court's order "makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend. Courts are charged with enforcing the law, but the law is explicit that SNAP benefits are subject to available appropriations.”
The government asked for a stay of the lower court's order by 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. on Friday morning, the court directed the plaintiff cities and nonprofit groups to file their response by noon ET.
U.S District Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered USDA Thursday afternoon to provide full benefits to SNAP recipients by Friday for the month of November by using both the SNAP contingency fund and Section 32 funding.
At the hearing Thursday, where McConnell ruled from the bench, he quoted the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935, which says USDA can transfer Section 32 funds to cover work of any division or bureau within the department.
USDA, however, has contended that transferring about $4 billion from Section 32 funding would deplete child nutrition funding.
“[I]it cannot possibly be arbitrary and capricious for USDA to decline to raid school-lunch money to instead fund SNAP benefits – to starve Peter to feed Paul, as it were,” the stay motion says.
Plaintiffs argued, and McConnell agreed, that even after transferring approximately $4 billion from Section 32, there would be ample funding to cover school meals during the 2025-26 school year.
Instead, McConnell called the government’s argument that it needs to reserve the money for child nutrition programs “a pretext.”
“What defendants are really trying to do is to leverage people's hunger to gain partisan political advantage in the shutdown fight,” he said Thursday.
McConnell said he had given the government the discretion to use the SNAP contingency fund so long as it “expeditiously” resolved any administrative or clerical issues with getting the money to beneficiaries promptly.
But USDA said that given the difficulty states would have making partial benefits, it might take weeks for benefits to get in people’s hands.
Given its inability to address the “irreparable harm” of people not receiving their benefits, McConnell said USDA had to use its Section 32 funding authority.
“We've now gone six days without needed food to 42 million, 16 million children,” McConnell said. “Irreparable harm.”
The government’s stay motion, however, called McConnell’s order “short-sighted” and said he had “thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations,” which “may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”
The government also rejected McConnell's criticism of a Nov. 4 social media post by President Donald Trump saying that SNAP benefits "will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government."
"To the court, that was a capricious effort to withhold SNAP benefits for political purposes, exposing pretext in USDA’s decision-making," it motion said. "Not at all. The President was simply stating the facts: There will soon be no money left in the SNAP reserves, and further benefits will not be available unless Congress appropriates the funds."
In their response, the plaintiffs said the government's "claimed desire to conserve [Section 32] funds for Child Nutrition programs — programs that have $23 billion on hand and require only $3 billion per month to operate — is facially implausible. Tapping Child Nutrition funds poses no realistic threat of leaving those programs underfunded."
Citing the underlying law and a previous Supreme Court decision, plaintiffs also said, "Congress’s instruction that SNAP assistance 'shall be furnished to all eligible households who make application for such participation,' 7 U.S.C. § 2014(a), provides a 'clear and specific directive[]' calling for USDA to fund SNAP in full when funds are available, as they are here."
Update: States and former governors, including former Iowa governor and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, have weighed in Friday with amicus briefs supporting the plaintiffs.
"Without full funding, states face an unprecedented emergency for their most vulnerable populations," the ex-governors said. The list includes 13 Democrats and four Republicans.
Noah Wicks contributed to this story.
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This story was updated throughout Nov. 7.
