The US Department of Agriculture ordered states to stop issuing full meals stamp benefits for November and to “immediately undo” any issuance of the full allotments, after a Supreme Court justice on Friday paused a decrease court docket order requiring the company to pay Americans their full help.
In the Saturday directive, obtained by NCS, the USDA informed states to as a substitute proceed with issuing partial benefits that may present recipients with 65% of their November allotments, as ordered by the identical decrease court docket choose earlier within the week.
“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, a high USDA official, wrote within the memo. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
States that fail to comply might face a cancellation of federal cost-sharing of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in addition to be financially accountable for over issuances of benefits, the memo stated.
This newest directive leaves in limbo the roughly 1 in 8 Americans who rely upon the nation’s bigger anti-hunger program. Over the previous week, the USDA has issued steering a number of occasions as lawsuits over the company’s resolution not to faucet right into a contingency fund to pay November benefits have labored their manner via federal courts.
The newest steering follows a memorandum from the division on Friday saying it was working to totally fund meals stamp benefits for November to adjust to a federal decrease court docket order, and that the method ought to be accomplished later that day.
Several states rapidly pounced on the information, saying the cash ought to begin flowing to recipients in coming days.
Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro introduced Friday that residents who ought to have already gotten their SNAP benefits this month will begin getting their full funds on Friday. The subsequent day, a Shapiro spokesperson informed NCS that residents who acquired their benefits are ready to spend them.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore stated Sunday that there’s “no clarity at all” within the steering and that the administration is inflicting “intentional chaos.”
“Once we decided to step up and say we are going to make sure that our people are going to be OK … we’ve now received guidance saying the states are going to be punished for fronting the money,” Moore stated on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday night quickly paused a decrease court docket order that required the Trump administration to cowl full food stamp benefits, siding with the administration on a short-term foundation in a authorized struggle that has rapidly develop into a defining confrontation of the government shutdown.
The ruling meant the USDA doesn’t have to instantly honor a decrease court docket order that required it to switch $4 billion to the important thing meals help program.
Jackson’s ruling adopted one a day earlier by US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island that directed the company to make the full funds, reversing his personal order from earlier within the month requiring the USDA to faucet into its $5.3 billion contingency fund to pay at the very least partial benefits for the month.
His extra expansive ruling mandated the company shift tariff income meant for little one vitamin applications to pay full SNAP benefits for November.
The meals stamp program has been in authorized limbo since final month, when officers stated recipients wouldn’t obtain their funds for November due to the lapse in appropriations for the federal government.
The resolution prompted two lawsuits, with two federal judges ruling in current weeks that the company should at the very least pay partial benefits or, at its discretion, present recipients with their full allotments.
The company opted to present partial funds — first saying states might difficulty 50% of the utmost profit and then revising the determine to 65%. But the USDA warned it might take weeks or months for some states to recalculate the allotments and distribute the help.
The plaintiffs within the Rhode Island case raced again to McConnell final week to argue that he ought to require the USDA to totally fund the benefits to get the cash out the door rapidly.
McConnell obliged. He dominated the administration had not labored quick sufficient to guarantee at the very least partial benefits reached hundreds of thousands of this system’s recipients and that it had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it determined in opposition to offering the full benefits this month.
Wisconsin instantly filed for 100% of its residents’ benefits to be positioned on their digital profit switch playing cards, in accordance to the Department of Justice’s submitting to the Supreme Court.
But the USDA rejected the request as a result of it had not but had time to adjust to McConnell’s order. That resulted within the state overdrawing its letter of credit score by $20 million.
Similarly, Kansas issued full benefits price almost $32 million to roughly 86,000 households within the state, the submitting stated.
These actions have damage states that didn’t transfer rapidly to difficulty benefits, in accordance to the DOJ. They will likely be unable to obtain funding to present partial funds to their residents beneath McConnell’s prior order.
Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly reacted to the Supreme Court’s motion in an announcement Friday evening, saying, “In accordance with a court’s order and after receiving guidance from the USDA, Kansas sent full November SNAP benefits to all eligible Kansans. These Kansans, most of them children, seniors or people with disabilities, were struggling to put food on their plates.”
North Carolina, which issued partial benefits to greater than 586,000 households on Friday, stated it was pausing the issuance of full benefits in mild of the Supreme Court resolution. It had hoped to difficulty them over the weekend.
“The hard-working people and families who rely on SNAP benefits deserve certainty, not confusion about whether they’ll be able to put meals on the table this weekend and the rest of the month,” North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein stated in an announcement Saturday. “I am urging for a swift resolution by the courts and some humanity from the Trump administration so North Carolina families can receive the support they need.”
NCS is reaching out to different states to ask the standing of their SNAP applications.
NCS’s John Fritze and Devan Cole contributed to this report.