The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Friday told states in a memo that full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits would be provided in November after a federal judge rejected plans by the Trump administration to offer partial benefits.
In a letter to regional SNAP directors, USDA’s Food and Nutritional Services said, “FNS is working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances in compliance with the November 6, 2025, order from the District Court of Rhode Island.”
“Later today, FNS will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor,” the agency added. “We will keep you as up to date as possible on any future developments and appreciate your continued partnership to serve program beneficiaries across the country. State agencies with questions should contact their FNS Regional Office representative.”
Roughly 42 million people in America, including 28 million children, rely on SNAP benefits every month.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to issue full SNAP benefits using a $5 billion contingency fund to do so. He was the same judge who ordered the White House last week to maintain SNAP benefits this month as the government shutdown persisted.
The administration has already asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block McConnell’s order.
“This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion Friday.
Vice President JD Vance late Thursday called McConnell’s ruling “absurd.”
“What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people,” Vance said in a roundtable with Central Asian leaders at the White House. “But in the midst of a shutdown we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation.”
