After two federal judges ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson has issued an emergency order to temporarily block the lower courts’ orders until a Boston appeals court reaches a ruling.
As a result of the government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze its $8 billion in monthly funding for SNAP benefits, which one in eight Americans rely on.
Attorney generals and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, arguing that it had a legal obligation to carry out funding. In 2024, Congress passed an appropriations bill that designated at least $3 billion in contingency funds for SNAP in the case of an emergency.
A federal court ruled that the administration must restore funding. The administration appealed, and an appellate court declined to halt the ruling while it considered Trump’s appeal. The administration then turned to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Trump administration argued that they were not allowed to access those reserves, even though, in anticipation of the shutdown, USDA was prepared to use its contingency funds to continue funding SNAP benefits.
States had acquired SNAP funding after the ruling, complicating the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency order to allow Trump to block the full SNAP distribution.
The USDA put out a memo ordering states to reverse any complete funding distributed for November, emphasizing that recipients should receive a 35% reduced allotment of SNAP funding.
“States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025,” the memo read. “Failure to comply with this memorandum may result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the Federal share of State administrative costs and holding States liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance.”
While the Trump administration has ordered states to reverse funding, some states have already distributed full SNAP benefits.
Wisconsin’s $104 million in SNAP benefits was swiftly distributed to the state’s 307,000 people who depend on the program. Along with Wisconsin, California, Kansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington quickly moved to distribute full SNAP benefits after the lower courts’ ruling.
The U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a court filing that states moving quickly 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.” He continued, “Once those billions are out the door, there is no ready mechanism for the government to recover those funds.”
Jackson’s order will remain for 48 hours after the Court of Appeals First Circuit issues a ruling.
