An EBT sign is displayed on the window of a grocery store on Oct. 30, 2025 in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The Trump administration told a federal judge in Rhode Island on Monday that it would tap billions of dollars in contingency funds to pay 50% of the normal amount of SNAP benefits in November as the U.S. government shutdown persists.
The administration told Judge Jack McConnell in a court filing that it declined the option he suggested to make full November payments for SNAP benefits with money from the Child Nutrition Program and other unspecified funds.
SNAP provides food stamps to about 42 million Americans.
McConnell on Friday ruled that the Trump administration could not cease paying SNAP benefits.
Before McConnell’s order, the administration had rejected the idea of using contingency funds appropriated by Congress to fund the food stamp program in the face of the shutdown.
McConnell, in a written order on Sunday, gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture two options.
One option was to make the full payment of SNAP benefits for November by the end of the day Monday by using Section 32 Child Nutrition Program fundings and other unspecified funds.
The other option was to “make a partial payment of the total amount of the contingency fund and … expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens it described in its papers, but under no circumstances shall the partial payments be made later than Wednesday.”
In its filing Monday choosing the second option, the administration said USDA “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State.”
USDA authorized the states to begin disbursing the benefits once the table is issued.
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