Supreme Court issues emergency order to block full SNAP food aid
payments
[November 08, 2025]
By DAVID A. LIEB, MICHAEL CASEY, SCOTT BAUER and MIKE
CATALINI
BOSTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump
administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to
fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even
though residents in some states already have received the funds.
A judge had given the Republican administration until Friday to make the
payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the
administration asked an appeals court to suspend any court orders
requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency
fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP
payments for the month.
After a Boston appeals court declined to immediately intervene, Supreme
Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an order late Friday pausing
the requirement to distribute full SNAP payments until the appeals court
rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause. Jackson handles
emergency matters from Massachusetts.
Her order will remain in place until 48 hours after the appeals court
rules, giving the administration time to return to the Supreme Court if
the appeals court refuses to step in.
The food program serves about 1 in 8 Americans, mostly with lower
incomes.
Officials in more than a half-dozen states confirmed that some SNAP
recipients already were issued full November payments on Friday. But
Jackson's order could prevent other states from initiating the payments.
Which states issued SNAP payments
In Wisconsin, more than $104 million of monthly food benefits became
available at midnight on electronic cards for about 337,000 households,
a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said. The state was able
to access the federal money so quickly by submitting a request to its
electronic benefit card vendor to process the SNAP payments within hours
of a Thursday court order to provide full benefits.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said state employees “worked through
the night” to issue full November benefits “to make sure every Oregon
family relying on SNAP could buy groceries” by Friday.
Hawaii had the information for November's monthly payments ready to go,
so it could submit it quickly for processing after Thursday's court
order — and before a higher court could potentially pause it, Joseph
Campos II, deputy director of Hawaii’s Department of Human Services,
told The Associated Press.
“We moved with haste once we verified everything,” Campos said.
Trump's administration told the Supreme Court that the fast-acting
states were “trying to seize what they could of the agency’s finite set
of remaining funds, before any appeal could even be filed, and to the
detriment of other States’ allotments.”
“Once those billions are out the door, there is no ready mechanism for
the government to recover those funds,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer
wrote in the court filing.
Officials in California, Kansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington
state also said they moved quickly to issue full SNAP benefits Friday,
while other states said they expected full benefits to arrive over the
weekend or early next week. Still others said they were waiting for
further federal guidance.
Many SNAP recipients face uncertainty
The court wrangling prolonged weeks of uncertainty for Americans with
lower incomes.
An individual can receive a monthly maximum food benefit of nearly $300
and a family of four up to nearly $1,000, although many receive less
than that under a formula that takes into consideration their income.
For some SNAP participants, it remained unclear when they would receive
their benefits.
Jasmen Youngbey of Newark, New Jersey, waited in line Friday at a food
pantry in the state’s largest city. As a single mom attending college,
Youngbey said she relies on SNAP to help feed her 7-month-old and
4-year-old sons. But she said her account balance was at $0.
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Volunteer Bruce Toben packs groceries durning an emergency food
distribution at the at The Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia's Mitzvah Food Program in Philadelphia, Friday, Nov. 7,
2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
“Not everybody has cash to pull out and say, ‘OK, I’m going to go
and get this,’ especially with the cost of food right now,” she
said.
Later Friday, Youngbey said, she received her monthly SNAP benefits.
The legal battle over SNAP takes another twist
Because of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration
originally had said SNAP benefits would not be available in
November. However, two judges ruled last week that the
administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because
of the shutdown. One of those judges was U.S. District Judge John J.
McConnell Jr., who ordered the full payments Thursday.
In both cases, the judges ordered the government to use one
emergency reserve fund containing more than $4.6 billion to pay for
SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the
full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each
month.
On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional
money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the
program and that the other money was needed to shore up other child
hunger programs.
Thursday’s federal court order rejected the Trump administration’s
decision to cover only 65% of the maximum monthly benefit, a
decision that could have left some recipients getting nothing for
this month.
In its court filings Friday, Trump’s administration contended that
the judge usurped both legislative and executive authority in
ordering SNAP benefits to be fully funded.
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of
powers,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.
States are taking different approaches to food aid
Some states said they stood ready to distribute SNAP money as
quickly as possible.
Colorado and Massachusetts said SNAP participants could receive
their full November payments as soon as Saturday. New York said
access to full SNAP benefits should begin by Sunday. New Hampshire
said full benefits should be available by this weekend. Arizona and
Connecticut said full benefits should be accessible in the coming
days.
Officials in North Carolina said they distributed partial SNAP
payments Friday and full benefits could be available by this
weekend. Officials in Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Dakota
also said they distributed partial November payments.
Amid the federal uncertainty, Delaware's Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer
said the state used its own funds Friday to provide the first of
what could be a weekly relief payment to SNAP recipients.
___
Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri; Bauer from Madison,
Wisconsin; and Catalini from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press
writers Mark Sherman in Washington; Sara Cline in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana; Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; Sejal Govindarao in
Phoenix; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; Heather Hollingsworth
in Mission, Kansas; Anthony Izaguirre in New York; Jennifer Kelleher
in Honolulu; Mingson Lau in Claymont, Delaware; John O'Connor, in
Springfield, Illinois; Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina;
Colleen Slevin in Denver; and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Philadelphia
contributed to this report.
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