One day after the Trump administration said SNAP benefits for November will be higher than its initial estimates, a federal judge ordered that the full amount be paid out.
On Monday, the Trump administration said that a $4 billion reserve fund would be tapped to provide about 50 percent of the usual benefits, according to NBC.
On Wednesday, the administration said that the figure would actually be 65 percent of benefits, with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying it will take “several weeks to execute partial payments.”
But on Thursday, a federal judge said that was not enough and demanded the full benefits be paid, giving the administration a day to fork it over, according to CNBC.
Republicans have voted 15 times to open the government and get paychecks flowing again.
Democrats have voted 15 times to block it — cutting off pay for workers, freezing SNAP benefits, and hurting families across America.
Then they have the AUDACITY to go on national television… pic.twitter.com/E0BVLXUrg6
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) November 5, 2025
“People have gone without for too long,” U.S. District Court Judge Jack McConnell of the District of Rhode Island said.
McConnell, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said the administration must use money it said it could not use, noting that he had ordered other sources than the reserve fund.
“The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur” unless SNAP recipients get their full benefits, McConnell said.
“That’s what irreparable harm here means. Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said. “This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided.”
The Trump administration has asked the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the order.
McConnell on Thursday gave prominence to a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump, who wrote that benefits “will be given on only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
He asserted that the post marked defiance of his order to pay the benefits promptly.
“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry,” he said, according to ABC. “Children are immediately at risk of going hungry. This should never happen in America.”
“It is clear to the court that the administration did not comply with this Court’s oral order of 10/31/25, or its written order of November 1, 2025,” he said.
This is absolutely insane. Obama-appointed judge John J. McConnell Jr. is ordering the Trump administration to pay the full amount of SNAP benefits for the month of November. That would total to around $9 Billion. The emergency fund that exists to cover SNAP during national… pic.twitter.com/2vepIZqJeu
— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) November 6, 2025
“The court was clear that the administration had to either make the full payment by this past Monday, or it must ‘expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens’ it described in its papers, but under no circumstances shall the partial payments be made later than Wednesday, November 5, 2025. The record is clear that the administration did neither,” he continued.
As noted by the Associated Press, a full month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government between $8.5 and $9 billion.
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