Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) signage at a grocery store in Dorchester, Massachusetts, US, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025.
Mel Musto | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to pay full SNAP benefits for November by Friday, rejecting the administration’s plan to partially fund the food stamp program for 42 million Americans during the U.S. government shutdown.
“People have gone without for too long,” Judge Jack McConnell said during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, where he issued the order.
McConnell said the Trump administration, which had already agreed to tap a congressionally authorized contingency fund to pay partial SNAP benefits, must also use so-called Section 32 funds that it had refused to tap earlier this week.
“The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur” if SNAP is not fully funded, said McConnell.
He noted in a written order that more than half of the program’s recipients are children, seniors and veterans.
“While the President of the United States professes a commitment to helping those it serves, the government’s actions tell a different story,” McConnell wrote.
“Faced with a choice between advancing relief and entrenching delay, it chose the latter — an outcome that predictably magnifies harm and undermines the very purpose of the program it administers.”
The order came after plaintiffs in the case urged him to reject the plan to pay only partial benefits, which the administration disclosed in a court filing in Providence on Monday.
The Trump administration later Thursday asked the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s new order, as well as an order he issued Friday directing the administration to make partial benefit payments as soon as possible.
McConnell at the hearing pointed to a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday said that SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
Trump’s post seemed to contradict statements by administration lawyers that the benefits would be partially paid for the month.
The White House later said there was no change in that plan, but also said it would take time to issue the partial benefits to recipients.
McConnell said that Trump’s post was effectively an admission that the administration intended to defy his prior order to seek out all possible funding sources so that full benefits could be paid.
The Trump administration last week said it would not use the contingency fund containing $4.65 billion to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in November. The total cost of full SNAP benefits for the month is around $8 billion.
The program, like other federal programs, has no currently appropriated money, as a result of Congress failing to pass a spending bill. That failure led to the U.S. government shutting down on Oct. 1.
Past presidential administrations have continued paying SNAP benefits during prior shutdowns.
A group of cities, charitable and faith-based non-profit groups, unions, and business organizations sued the administration, seeking to force it to use the contingency funds and potentially other money to fund SNAP.
McConnell, during a court hearing last Friday, blocked the administration from halting SNAP benefits and ordered that it pay benefits from the contingency fund “as soon as possible,” and investigate whether other funds could be tapped to fully fund the program for the month.
On Monday, the administration told McConnell it would pay 50% of the benefits by using the contingency fund. But it ruled out using at least $4 billion from the Child Nutrition Program, as well as other sources.
On Wednesday night, the administration updated its plan, saying that 65% of the benefits would be paid.
McConnell at Thursday’s hearing blasted the U.S. Department of Agriculture for refusing to use the Nutrition Program’s funds to help fully pay November’s benefits, calling that decision “arbitrary and capricious.”
“USDA had an obligation, beginning … Oct. 1, when the shutdown began, to prepare to use the contingency funds so that the recipients would get their benefits as expected on Nov. 1,” McConnell said.
“USDA did not do so,” he said. “Even when Nov. 1 came, USDA refused to use the congressionally mandated contingency funds, USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments.”
Earlier Thursday, a coalition of around two dozen states asked another federal judge, in Boston, to order the administration to fully fund SNAP benefits. McConnell’s order came before that judge had time to rule on that request.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose state is one of the plaintiffs in the Boston suit, in a statement said, “A judge in Rhode Island just stopped the federal government from starving millions of Americans.”
“I am relieved that people will get the food they need, but it is outrageous that it took a lawsuit to make the federal government feed its own people,” James said.