Fox Information’ Christina Coleman experiences the newest on how the federal government shutdown is impacting Individuals because the political blame recreation continues.
The Trump administration instructed a federal choose on Monday that it’ll partially resume Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP) advantages for the month of November regardless of the continuing authorities shutdown, although when the funds will probably be distributed — and the way a lot beneficiaries will obtain — stays to be seen.
A senior Trump administration official instructed the courtroom in a sworn declaration Monday that the U.S. Division of Agriculture will allocate $4.65 billion of its $5 billion contingency fund to maintain the SNAP program funded for the month of November.
The motion is prone to be welcome information for the 42 million Individuals who obtain SNAP help.
It comes after 25 Democratic state attorneys basic and governors sued USDA Tuesday over its choice to not allocate contingency funds to maintain the SNAP profit program funded throughout the federal government shutdown, presently in its thirty fourth day.
TWO JUDGES RULE TRUMP ADMIN MUST KEEP SNAP BENEFITS IN PLACE AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speaks alongside Home Speaker Mike Johnson throughout a information convention on Capitol Hill on Oct. 31, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Photographs)
The contingency funds won’t completely cowl the prices to maintain SNAP operating via the month of November, as Trump administration officers testified in courtroom final week. That quantity is nearer to $9 billion.
Patrick Penn, a senior USDA official who oversees the SNAP program, instructed the courtroom Monday that the up to date SNAP cost plan will cowl 50% of eligible households’ present allotments for November.
Funds will probably be decreased, nonetheless, and he warned that some people might see additional delays attributable to system modifications and different administrative lags.
“There are procedural difficulties that states will doubtless expertise which might have an effect on November SNAP advantages reaching households in a well timed method and within the appropriately decreased quantities,” Penn stated, including that the USDA’s understanding is that these modifications required to supply the decreased profit quantities to recipients will “take anyplace from a couple of weeks to as much as a number of months.”
SENATE GOP DIVIDED AS MILLIONS RISK LOSING FOOD AID IN SHUTDOWN STANDOFF
A volunteer shows info on the Supplemental Dietary Help Program at a grocery retailer in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (Mel Musto/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs)
The information comes after two federal judges on Friday ordered the Division of Agriculture to make use of its $5 billion contingency fund to maintain the meals help program operating past Nov. 1, when funding for this system expired.
U.S. District Decide John McConnell had specified that USDA “should distribute the contingency cash well timed, or as quickly as doable,” earlier than the Nov. 1 cost deadline.
“Defendants have labored diligently to adjust to the Court docket’s order on the brief timeline supplied by the Court docket and through a authorities shutdown,” attorneys for the Justice Division instructed McConnell in a submitting Monday, accompanied by finer particulars of the plan.
SNAP signage at a grocery retailer in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (Mel Musto/Bloomberg through / Getty Photographs)
USDA officers beforehand instructed the courtroom that they’d deliberate to maintain the $5 billion in emergency funds readily available to reply to pure disasters — a element Penn famous on Monday.
“Which means no funds will stay for brand spanking new SNAP candidates licensed in November, catastrophe help, or as a cushion towards the potential catastrophic penalties of shutting down SNAP completely,” Penn stated of the funding plan.
President Donald Trump stated on Friday that he had requested attorneys for the administration to look into the matter and legally fund SNAP “as quickly as doable.”
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“If we’re given the suitable authorized route by the Court docket, it would BE MY HONOR to supply the funding,” Trump stated in a social media publish.
The states who sued over the lapse in SNAP advantages warned that shutting off this system can be “devastating” for hundreds of thousands of Individuals, and trigger “deterioration of public well being and well-being.”
