The Trump administration told a federal judge on Monday that it will partially resume Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for the month of November despite the ongoing government shutdown, though when the payments will be distributed — and how much beneficiaries will receive — remains to be seen.
A senior Trump administration official told the court in a sworn declaration Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allocate $4.65 billion of its $5 billion contingency fund to keep the SNAP program funded for the month of November.
The action is likely to be welcome news for the 42 million Americans who receive SNAP aid.
It comes after 25 Democratic state attorneys general and governors sued USDA Tuesday over its decision not to allocate contingency funds to keep the SNAP benefit program funded during the government shutdown, currently in its 34th day.
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The contingency funds will not entirely cover the costs to keep SNAP running through the month of November, as Trump administration officials testified in court last week. That number is closer to $9 billion.
Patrick Penn, a senior USDA official who oversees the SNAP program, told the court Monday that the updated SNAP payment plan will cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments for November.
Payments will be reduced, however, and he warned that some individuals could see further delays due to system changes and other administrative lags.
"There are procedural difficulties that states will likely experience which would affect November SNAP benefits reaching households in a timely manner and in the correctly reduced amounts," Penn said, adding that the USDA's understanding is that these changes required to provide the reduced benefit amounts to recipients will "take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months."
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The news comes after two federal judges on Friday ordered the Department of Agriculture to use its $5 billion contingency fund to keep the food aid program running beyond Nov. 1, when funding for the program expired.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell had specified that USDA "must distribute the contingency money timely, or as soon as possible," before the Nov. 1 payment deadline.
"Defendants have worked diligently to comply with the Court's order on the short timeline provided by the Court and during a government shutdown," lawyers for the Justice Department told McConnell in a filing Monday, accompanied by finer details of the plan.
USDA officials previously told the court that they had planned to keep the $5 billion in emergency funds on hand to respond to natural disasters — a detail Penn noted on Monday.
"This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely," Penn said of the funding plan.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had asked lawyers for the administration to look into the matter and legally fund SNAP "as soon as possible."
"If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding," Trump said in a social media post.
The states who sued over the lapse in SNAP benefits warned that shutting off the program would be "devastating" for millions of Americans, and cause "deterioration of public health and well-being."
