Trump Administration Approves Partial SNAP Payments For November

BlackAmericaWeb

Nov 3, 2025 - 17:30

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Trump Administration Approves Partial SNAP Payments For November

White House — Source: The Washington Post / Getty

Towards the end of last week, Trump and his administration were declared by federal judges to use contingency funds to pay SNAP benefits in full for November. Though Trump was officially declared by judges, that didn’t mean he would listen. His administration declined the option that was given to him by U.S. District Court Judge Jack McConnell, who suggested Trump make full November payments by using at least $4 billion from the Child Nutrition Program as well as other unspecified funds.

SNAP provides nearly 42 million low-income Americans with assistance. Though the administration did not agree to pay in full, they agreed to use contingency funds to pay some of the SNAP benefits during this ongoing government shutdown.

On Monday, the trump admin told a Rhode Island federal judge that they would tap into the billions of dollars in the contingency funds to only pay 50% of the normal SNAP benefit amount in November. The administration will use all of the $4.65 billion remaining in a contingency fund for SNAP that was appropriated by Congress. “November benefits that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.”

In a ruling on Friday, McConnell said that the administration could not cease paying SNAP benefits. Before his order, the administration rejected any ideas of using the contingency funds during this shutdown that began on October 1st.

During prior government shutdowns, presidential administrations, including in trump in his first term have used contingency funds to continue paying SNAP benefits.There is no indication of when these November benefits will begin being paid out by the individual states. Benefits could be paid as early as Wednesday, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Monday, the administration said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State.”

The USDA was given 2 options on Saturday in a written order by McConnell.

Option one was to make the full payment of SNAP benefits for November by the end of the day on Monday, using Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funding and other unspecified funds.

Option two was to “make a partial payment of the total amount of the contingency fund and … expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens it described in its papers, but under no circumstances shall the partial payments be made later than Wednesday.”

In a separate court filing on Monday, Patrick Penn, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary of the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, told McConnell the department considered using the Child Nutrition Program funds.. However, the department determined those funds “must remain available to protect full operation of Child Nutrition Programs throughout the fiscal year, instead of being used for SNAP benefits,” according to Penn.
“Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” Penn said. “Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances.”

He noted that those funds include school lunches and summer food service programs for children.