Trump administration says SNAP will be partially funded in November
[November 04, 2025]
By GEOFF MULVIHILL and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration said
Monday that it will partially fund SNAP for November, after two judges
issued rulings requiring the government to keep the nation’s largest
food aid program running.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, had planned to freeze payments starting
Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it during the
federal government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans
and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. It costs more
than $8 billion per month nationally. The government says an emergency
fund it will use has $4.65 billion — enough to cover about half the
normal benefits.
Exhausting the fund potentially sets the stage for a similar situation
in December if the shutdown isn't resolved by then.
It’s not clear exactly how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how
quickly they will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy
groceries. November payments have already been delayed for millions of
people.
“The Trump Administration has the means to fund this program in full,
and their decision not to will leave millions of Americans hungry and
waiting even longer for relief as government takes the additional steps
needed to partially fund this program,” Massachusetts Attorney General
Andrea Joy Campbell, who led a coalition of Democratic state officials
in one of the lawsuits that forced the funding, said in a statement.
The administration also provided an infusion to the Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which helps
low-income mothers buy nutritious staples. WIC received an additional
$450 million in funding, according to a senior administration official
who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to discuss the decision publicly. POLITICO first reported on
the funding Monday afternoon.
Last month, some states warned they only had enough money to operate
their WIC programs until mid-November. The administration last month
reallocated $300 million in unspent tariff revenue to keep the program
running.
How will SNAP beneficiaries manage?
People who receive the benefits are trying to figure out how to stretch
their grocery money further.
Corina Betancourt, who lives in Glendale, Arizona, already uses a food
bank sometimes to get groceries for herself and her three kids, ages 8
through 11. With her SNAP benefits reduced and delayed, she’s expecting
to use the food bank more and find ways to stretch what she has further.
She is worried that there won’t be enough for her children to eat with
about $400 this month instead of around $800. “We always make things
work somehow, some way,” she said.
In Camden, New Jersey, Jamal Brown, who is paralyzed after a series of
strokes and on a fixed income, said family members asked him for a list
of groceries he needs so they can stock him up.
But not everyone has that help.
“How did you expect to live a healthy life if you’re not eating the
right stuff?” he asked. “If you don't have the access to the food
stamps, you’re going to go to the cheapest thing that you can afford.”
Details on how payments will roll out are still to come
The administration said it would provide details to states Monday on
calculating the per-household partial benefit. The process of loading
the SNAP cards, which involves steps by state and federal government
agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. But the
USDA warned in a court filing that it could take weeks or even months
for states to make all the system changes to send out reduced benefits.
The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.
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A SNAP EBT sign is displayed on a shelf at a gas station in
Riverwoods, Ill., Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference that
it would take his state about a week to load benefit cards once the
funding is made available.
“These are folks who are hungry, and every day matters,” Bonta said.
The USDA said last month that benefits for November wouldn’t be paid
due to the federal government shutdown. That set off a scramble by
food banks, state governments and the nearly 42 million Americans
who receive the aid to find ways to ensure access to groceries.
The liberal group Democracy Forward, which represented plaintiffs in
one of the lawsuits, said it was considering legal options to force
full SNAP funding.
Other high-profile Democrats are calling for the government to do
that on its own.
“USDA has the authority to fully fund SNAP and needs to do so
immediately. Anything else is unacceptable,” Senate Democratic
Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media.
State governments step in
Most states have boosted aid to food banks, and some are setting up
systems to reload benefit cards with state taxpayer dollars. The
threat of a delay also spurred lawsuits.
Federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled separately
but similarly Friday, telling the government in response to lawsuits
filed by Democratic state officials, cities and nonprofits that it
was required to use one emergency fund to pay for the program, at
least in part. They gave the government the option to use additional
money to fully fund the program and a deadline of Monday to decide.
Patrick Penn, Deputy Under Secretary Food Nutrition and Consumer
Services for USDA, said in a court filing Monday that the department
chose not to tap other emergency funds to ensure there's not a gap
in child nutrition programs for the rest of this fiscal year, which
runs through September 2026.
Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force
people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills.
The majority of states have announced more or expedited funding for
food banks or novel ways to load at least some benefits onto the
SNAP debit cards.
New Mexico and Rhode Island officials said Monday that some SNAP
beneficiaries received funds over the weekend from their emergency
programs. Officials in Delaware are telling recipients that their
benefits won't be available until at least Nov. 7.
To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a household's net income after certain
expenses can’t exceed the federal poverty line. For a family of
four, that's about $32,000 per year.
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Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey. Associated Press
reporters Kevin Freking, Moriah Balingit and Josh Boak in
Washington, D.C.; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Tran
Nguyen in Sacramento, California, contributed.
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