Trump admin will pay full SNAP benefits
Digest more
Instead of receiving 50% of their usual monthly benefit, many households will receive much less, or perhaps nothing at all.
A federal appeals court ruled late Sunday that the Trump administration can be forced to pay full food benefits in November, putting the onus on the Supreme Court to decide whether the administration can avoid paying benefits that feed more than 40 million people.
The programme has been left in limbo during the US government shutdown, with the White House saying it can't afford it.
The judge scolded Trump officials for failing to comply with his order to fund the SNAP program through November and gave them just 24 hours to do so.
After a Boston appeals court declined to immediately intervene, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an order late Friday pausing the requirement to distribute full SNAP payments until the appeals court rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause.
The shutdown brought the scale of the federal food aid program into focus and raised questions about how such a rich country could have so many people on nutrition assistance.
The high court extended through Thursday a stay on a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to pay full food stamp benefits this month.
Feedback