On Friday, the Trump administration made a desperate run to the Supreme Court. The goal was to stop food stamp payments from going out the door. Officials warned that if the money moved, there’d be no getting it back, a claim that set off a late-night legal scramble over the country’s largest food aid program.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency request just before the day’s end, telling the court the government faced an “irretrievable transfer of billions of dollars” if it complied with a lower court order to pay full SNAP benefits for November. Once those funds were gone, he wrote, “there is no ready mechanism” to recover them, adding that other nutrition programs would be forced to pick up the tab.
The appeal landed on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s desk. She handles emergency petitions from the 1st Circuit, and her decision, even if temporary, could determine whether millions of families see full grocery benefits this month or not.
The frantic move followed a rough day for the administration. Earlier that evening, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government’s attempt to delay payments, ruling that officials had the authority to use a long-standing USDA account known as Section 32 to fund SNAP. The three-judge panel, led by Chief Judge David Barron, denied the stay and sent the fight straight to the high court.
At the center of it all is a simple problem: the money has run out. For the first time in history, SNAP funding officially hit zero on November 1, as the government shutdown continues into another month. Without new funding, states were left to choose between obeying a court order to pay full benefits or waiting to see whether the Supreme Court would intervene.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced they’d move ahead with full payments anyway.
Behind the scenes, USDA officials were juggling conflicting instructions: either follow one court order to send the money or follow another that told them to hold off. The department had already dipped into emergency reserves to cover partial payments, but those funds were quickly drying up. The administration warned that going further could drain money from school lunch programs and other child nutrition funds. “The government’s decision not to handicap one program to backstop another was eminently reasonable,” Sauer insisted.
Not everyone bought it, as Anti-hunger groups called the government’s argument heartless. “Families can’t survive on half payments,” said one nonprofit director. “They’re already standing in line at food pantries. They can’t wait for legal gymnastics to play out.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, meanwhile, lashed out at U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., who first ordered the government to restore full funding. “Judicial activism at its worst,” she posted on X. “One judge in Rhode Island shouldn’t be deciding how the country feeds its people.”
Now, the country waits as the Supreme Court’s brief pause buys the administration a few more days, but for families depending on food aid, the uncertainty stretches on. In kitchens across America, parents are checking their EBT cards, hoping the balance holds, while Washington’s legal fight decides whether their next meal will make it to the table.
