The Trump administration said it would provide partial relief to recipients of food stamps on Monday as the federal government shutdown approached a record-breaking length.
Amid mounting uncertainty among the nearly 42 million people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), the Department of Agriculture said it would use contingency funds to keep benefits going, albeit just 50% of the usual funds recipients receive on their cards.
The announcement, in a court filing by the government at the US district court in Rhode Island, came after Donald Trump said the administration would comply with a court order to provide emergency funding after previous refusals to do so on purported legal grounds. Before Monday’s announcement, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, had suggested that emergency funding might not be available immediately and called for more court guidance on how to fund Snap legally.
Money for the program officially ran out on Saturday as a result of the US government shutdown, now in its 34th day and showing no sign of ending as congressional Republican continued their standoff with the Democrats.
The US president said on Friday that he would be “honored” to provide emergency funding for the program after Judge John McConnell of the US district court in Rhode Island ruled that the administration could not deny the program funds because of the shutdown.
“I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible … even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network on Friday. “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding.”
McConnell promptly issued an order the following day instructing the administration to start making contingency funds available by midday on Monday.
The administration had previously argued that it was legally prohibited from tapping into the contingency fund to provide Snap benefits, arguing that it could only be used in the cases such as natural disasters. The judge rejected that position as “arbitrary”.
“The court greatly appreciates the president’s quick and definitive response to this court’s order and his desire to provide the necessary Snap funding,” McConnell wrote in Saturday’s order.
The pause in benefits from the program is unprecedented.
Bessent told CNN that funds could start flowing by Wednesday, and said he wanted more guidance from the courts on how money could be legally switched around to fund Snap benefits.
“There’s a process that has to be followed,” Bessent said. “So, we’ve got to figure out what the process is.”
Some states have said it will take days and, in some cases, even weeks to give out benefits to low income recipients because the government did not disperse partial funds for it after the shutdown began on 1 October.
Long queues have been reported at food banks across the country. In California and Texas, stadium car parks were converted into distribution sites amid uncertainty over the program’s continuation.
Some states, including New York, Oregon and Virginia, declared states of emergency last week to provide funds that would keep benefits available. But the amounts provided were expected to amount to a fraction of normal federal government funding. The federal costs of Snap amounts to about $8bn a month across the US.
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