Trump administration will use SNAP contingency fund to pay partial meals stamp advantages

Washington — The U.S. Division of Agriculture instructed a federal courtroom that it’s going to faucet right into a contingency fund to permit states to situation partial advantages underneath the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program for the month of November through the authorities shutdown.

In a declaration submitted to the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Rhode Island, Patrick Penn, a Division of Agriculture official who oversees SNAP, mentioned the administration “intends to deplete SNAP contingency funds utterly and supply decreased SNAP advantages for November 2025.”

There are roughly $5.2 billion in food-aid contingency funds, based on Penn. Officers have mentioned totally overlaying November advantages would require roughly $9 billion.

Greater than 42 million Individuals depend on SNAP to purchase meals, and this system ran out of funding over the weekend as a result of ongoing shutdown. The federal authorities funds SNAP by sending cash to the states, which oversee meals stamp applications for his or her residents.

Justice Division legal professionals individually instructed the courtroom that the administration will “fulfill its obligation to expend the total quantity of SNAP contingency funds” by offering states with data on Monday that they’ll use to calculate advantages as a consequence of every eligible family.

The submitting got here in response to an order issued by Decide John McConnell. McConnell is overseeing a case introduced by a coalition of nonprofits and municipalities who’re looking for to pressure the Trump administration to make use of the contingency funds to cowl November SNAP advantages.

On Friday, McConnell ordered the Trump administration to faucet into the fund to cowl the lapse in SNAP funding attributable to the shutdown. The decide gave the federal government till midday on Monday to file a standing replace in regards to the distribution of the funds.

In a separate case in Massachusetts, two dozen states and the District of Columbia filed swimsuit to get the administration to make use of the contingency funds. The decide in that case agreed with their argument that the federal government is required to make use of the cash and likewise requested for an replace by Monday. 

The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress had argued that the contingency fund could not legally be used to pay SNAP advantages as a result of the underlying appropriation for this system had lapsed. Each judges disagreed with that argument and mentioned the fund should be used to cowl a part of the shortfall.

“There is no such thing as a query that the congressionally permitted contingency funds should be used now due to the shutdown,” McConnell wrote within the written model of his order on Saturday. 

He additionally mentioned the federal government ought to “discover the extra funds mandatory (past the contingency funds) to completely fund the November SNAP funds.” The $5 billion within the contingency fund doesn’t totally cowl the $9 billion wanted to pay out advantages for the month, and the administration had argued that calculating partial funds could be “exceedingly tough, extremely disruptive, and delayed.”

The decide mentioned the federal government might select to situation partial funds as a substitute of discovering different sources of funding, however added that “in no way” might these funds be delayed past Wednesday.

The USDA warned late final month that federal meals advantages wouldn’t exit to roughly 42 million recipients on Nov. 1 after it declined to faucet into contingency funds to maintain meals stamp funds flowing through the shutdown. The company pinned the blame for the pause on congressional Democrats for failing to again a GOP-backed stopgap measure that will fund federal businesses.

The shutdown entered its thirty fourth day Monday and is poised to turn into the longest shutdown in U.S. historical past if lawmakers fail to achieve settlement on a spending measure by late Tuesday.

The preliminary choice to halt the meals support gave the impression to be a shift from the USDA’s plan for a lapse in federal funding that was issued Sept. 30. The company mentioned in its plan that multi-year contingency funds might be used for state administrative bills to make sure states might proceed SNAP operations throughout a shutdown and had been additionally out there “to fund participant advantages” within the occasion of a funding lapse.

However the USDA wrote in a memo to states late final month that the reserve funds had been “not legally out there to over common advantages,” and mentioned the cash was meant for priorities like helping individuals in catastrophe areas.

Confronted with the looming cutoff of meals stamp funds, half the states of the District of Columbia, in addition to the municipalities, sought aid from the federal courts. Some states mentioned they’d work to proceed offering help to food-aid beneficiaries. Roughly 1 in 8 Individuals obtain meals stamps.