A sign at a supermarket on Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay about half of November’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, but it could take months for benefits to be paid out to recipients, the department said in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island on Monday.
A four-page report from the USDA responded to U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order that President Donald Trump’s administration pay at least some benefits to the 42 million people receiving assistance under the program by the end of Wednesday, despite the government shutdown.
The USDA action does not address what would happen if the shutdown extends beyond November.
Leading Democrats in Congress criticized the administration’s decision to pay only a portion of monthly benefits, saying Trump was deliberately denying food aid to needy Americans. “Providing partial benefits is insufficient, unconstitutional and particularly cruel of Trump as the Thanksgiving season approaches,” said New York Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
McConnell on Saturday two options presented for administration: pay out partial benefits by the end of Wednesday through an emergency fund which currently has about $4.65 billion available, or pay a full month of benefits by the end of Monday using other backup sources such as the Child Nutrition Program.
USDA decided to do this Use the emergency fundwhich gives the department until the end of Wednesday to pay out the benefits.
However, a statement from Patrick A. Penn, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said the administrative hurdles in calculating and providing a half-month benefit share could take “anywhere from a few weeks to several months.”
According to the status report signed by U.S. Justice Department officials, the department complied with McConnell’s order by beginning to resume payments on Monday.
The USDA “will fulfill its commitment to spend the full amount of SNAP emergency funds today by preparing the table that states will need to calculate the benefits available to each eligible household in that state,” they said. “The USDA will therefore have made the necessary funds available and authorized states to begin disbursements as soon as the table is issued.”
Delayed SNAP benefits during shutdown
McConnell’s order acknowledged that calculating the reduced benefits would take time, so he said he gave the USDA until Wednesday if the department chose that route.
But Penn said Monday that wasn’t nearly enough time, in part because of some states’ old-fashioned systems for processing benefits.
The federal government will provide states with updated tables for benefits at the partial funding level by Monday, he said. States must then send updated files to providers that process the benefits and add them to beneficiaries’ debit-like EBT cards, which they can spend on groceries.
Monday marked the 34th day of the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs or pass a stopgap bill.
The U.S. Senate was expected to hold another procedural vote to advance the House-passed GOP stopgap bill that would fund the government at fiscal 2025 levels through Nov. 21.
Democrats voted against the measure to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
On Tuesday, the funding shortfall will mark the longest shutdown in history, which occurred between 2018 and 2019.
Dispute over emergency funds
By tardy October, the government had warned that it would be unable to pay SNAP benefits for that month because of the shutdown, saying it was prohibited by law from using the emergency fund set aside for natural disasters and similar emergencies.
But two federal states Judge decided Oct. 31 that the USDA not only could utilize the fund but was required to do so to keep SNAP benefits flowing.
Saturday marked the first benefit payment failure in the contemporary history of the program, which is part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s anti-poverty agenda.
Lawmakers, advocates and SNAP experts said there will be a delay in November benefits for program users as the administration works to restart the program.
The administration’s insistence that it cannot utilize its emergency fund, originally approved by Congress for $6 billion, was a reversal from a Sept. 30 USDA plan for dealing with a shutdown that specifically called for using the fund to continue providing benefits.
One month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government about $9 billion.
While the USDA did not intend to utilize the emergency fund to finance regular benefits, it spent about $750 million of the original $6 billion on other uses in October, according to data a Monday statement to the court from Penn.
The department spent about $450 million on state administrative expenses and $300 million on block grants to Puerto Rico and American Samoa, Penn wrote.
The ministry will again allocate $450 million for administrative expenses and $150 million for the block grants to the territories in November, he added.
That left $4.65 billion for November benefits, Penn wrote.
No utilize of funds for child nutrition
Penn also explained the USDA’s decision not to utilize a child nutrition program fund to cover the shortfall in SNAP benefits.
The administration wants to keep that fund fully stocked, he said.
“The Child Nutrition Program funds are not an emergency fund for SNAP,” he said. “Appropriating billions of dollars from child nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in child nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances.”
The Child Nutrition Program funds school meals, summer meals for children, and summer EBT benefits for low-income families with children. The school lunch program alone serves about 29 million children each day, Penn said.
Democrats call USDA plan ‘unacceptable’
Democrats expressed dismay that the administration chose not to fully fund the November benefits.
“Paying bare minimum now to partially fund SNAP is not enough and unacceptable,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state wrote in one Social media post Monday.
“Trump should work immediately to fully fund the benefits provided by law,” added Murray, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Budget Panel, said “this was entirely avoidable” and noted that Trump “chose to take hungry children, seniors and veterans hostage in a selfish and cruel attempt to gain political advantage.”
“Now partial benefits will be sent late and families will go hungry while this administration continues to throw lavish parties for its billionaire donors and political allies,” the Connecticut Democrat said.
She added that “we are in this situation because the Trump administration lacks political will” and called on the USDA to “put politics aside and use the money available to ensure families don’t go hungry.”
Speaker Johnson defends Trump
At a news conference Monday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson continued to defend Trump’s handling of SNAP payments.
The president is “desperate to ensure that SNAP benefits go to the American citizens who desperately need them,” Johnson said.
The Louisiana Republican echoed the words of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Friday claim She did so to justify her agency’s refusal to utilize the emergency fund to finance SNAP.
“Our understanding has always been this: The emergency fund could not be used legally if the underlying fund was suspended,” Johnson said.
He blamed congressional Democrats for voting against the stopgap bill and pointed out that two Massachusetts federal court judges, McConnell and Indira Talwani, who separately ordered the payments to resume were appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama.
Talwani ruled Friday that the USDA’s plan to suspend SNAP was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before ruling on a request to force payment of benefits despite the ongoing government shutdown.
Johnson also acknowledged the elaborate logistics of releasing the money to states.
“So it’s not as elementary as hitting ‘send’ on the computer – you have to go through and recalculate the partial payments to the 42 million recipients of the program,” Johnson said. “That puts a huge burden on the states and the government to have to figure this out in a brief period of time.”
