BOSTON — Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown.
The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown.
The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Word in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep versions of the program going.
The program costs around $8 billion per month nationally.
Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the program, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions.
The administration said it wasn’t allowed to use a contingency fund with about $5 billion in it for the program, which reversed a USDA plan from before the shutdown that said money would be tapped to keep SNAP running. The Democratic officials argued that not only could that money be used, it must be. They also said a separate fund with around $23 billion is available for the cause.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled from a bench that the program must be funded using at least the contingency funds – and asked for an update on progress by Monday.
A Massachusetts-based judge also gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partially pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.
The rulings are likely to face appeals.
In a hearing in Boston Thursday on a legal challenge filed by the Democratic officials from 25 states, one federal judge seemed skeptical of the administration’s argument that SNAP benefits could be halted.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani told lawyers that if the government can’t afford to cover the cost, there’s a process to follow rather than simply suspending all benefits. “The steps involve finding an equitable way of reducing benefits,” said Talwani, who was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama.
Talwani seemed to be leaning toward requiring the government to put billions of dollars in emergency funds toward SNAP. That, she said, is her interpretation of what Congress intended when an agency’s funding runs out.
“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”
Government lawyers say a contingency fund containing some $5 billion cannot legally be used to maintain SNAP, a program that costs about $8 billion a month. The states say it must be used for that purpose and point to more money available in a second federal account with around $23 billion.
Talwani said her ruling would apply nationwide, not just in the states that are part of the challenge. That could defy the intentions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has limited the use of nationwide injunctions, though it hasn’t prohibited them.
Meanwhile, states, food banks and recipients have been bracing for an abrupt shift in how low-income people can get groceries.
The majority of states have announced more or expedited funding for food banks or novel ways to load at least some benefits onto the debit cards used in the program.
Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills.
At a Washington news conference Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department runs SNAP, said the contingency funds in question would not cover the cost of SNAP for long. Speaking at a press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol, she blamed Democrats for conducting a “disgusting dereliction of duty” by refusing to end their Senate filibuster as they hold out for an extension of health care funds.
A push this week to continue SNAP funding during the shutdown failed in Congress.
To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a family of four’s net income after certain expenses can’t exceed the federal poverty line, which is about $31,000 per year. Last year, SNAP provided assistance to 41 million people, nearly two-thirds of whom were families with children, according to the lawsuit.
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Story by Michael Casey, Geoff Mulvihill and Kimberlee Kruesi. Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey; and Kruesi from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro in Washington, D.C., contributed.
