The USDA ordered states to “undo” steps taken to issue full food stamp benefits after the Supreme Court temporarily paused a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to fully fund the program.
“To the extent States sent full [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” the agency wrote in a memo Sunday. “Accordingly, states must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
Nearly 42 million Americans rely on SNAP benefits each month.
Due to the ongoing government shutdown, benefits have not been doled out for nearly a week — the first lapse in the program’s 61-year history.
A district judge Thursday ordered that the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits for the month of November. “People have gone without for too long. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable,” the judge said. “This should never happen in America.”
The government then filed an appeal, which the federal appeals court rejected on Friday. President Donald Trump then appealed to the nation’s highest court, which temporarily granted the Trump administration’s request.
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson signed an order Friday stating “an administrative stay is required to facilitate the First Circuit’s expeditious resolution of the pending stay motion.”
As the legal challenge was playing out in various courts, the USDA issued a notice Friday stating it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances in compliance” with the lower court order.
Following the Supreme Court justice’s order, on Sunday, the USDA warned that “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 over issuances that result from the noncompliance.”
Food banks have been swamped over the last month due to the shutdown, which has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay and now, millions more without access to food assistance benefits. Across the country, people are concerned about how they will feed themselves and their families as the fate of food benefits remains up in the air.
“It’s a matter of, we still have to wait to find out if they’re even going to be able to load my card,” Oakland, California, resident Elliot Nicks told SFGate. “So when my kids come and visit for the holidays, am I going to have enough to cover rent versus, put a meal on their table?”
In New Jersey, SNAP recipient Anne Pinet told NBC New York: “It’s tough because we’re a family of six and we provide for our grandchildren and our children. For the president and the federal government to even be doing this to its citizens is crazy.”
Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari slammed the latest USDA memo, pointing out that the president attended a lavish dinner party at Mar-a-Lago that featured a three-course menu of beef filet, truffle dauphinoise, pan-seared scallops and a trio of desserts.
“Trump’s @USDA just told states to ‘undo’ full SNAP benefits—and threatened to punish them if they keep feeding families. They are intentionally starving Americans while Trump plays golf and throws lavish parties for billionaires. It’s unconscionable. And we won’t let it stand,” the Congresswoman wrote on X Sunday.
Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray similarly wrote: “In the dead of night, the Trump administration ordered states to stop issuing SNAP benefits. This president will stop at nothing to take food out of the mouths of hungry kids across America. Soulless.”
