trump administration ordered the states To “undo” Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments.
“States should immediately rescind any steps taken to release full SNAP benefits through November 2025,” Saturday memorandum from The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
The department also said in the memo that “failure to comply” could result in “USDA taking various actions, including canceling the federal share of state administrative costs.”
An order forcing the Trump administration to pay full SNAP November payments by Friday was temporarily Supreme Court Justice stopped Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson’s decision did not reflect a ruling on the underlying legal merits of the case, but it provided temporary relief to the Trump administration.
The chaos over SNAP comes amid the ongoing government shutdown, which has lasted for more than a month.
SNAP is received funding from federal The government, while states handle the administrative work of handing out payments to eligible residents. An average of 41.7 million Americans received SNAP benefits last year.
States have geared up to freeze SNAP, looking to their own emergency funds, directing people to food banks or saying benefits will no longer be available starting this month.
Last Tuesday, President Trump indicated that he would hold The back snap benefits unless “radical leftist Democrats open the government.”
“SNAP benefits, which grew by billions and billions of dollars (many times!) during crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure in office (due to the fact that they were randomly ‘handed out’ to anyone who asked, not just the needy, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will only be given out if the radical left Democrats open the government, which they can easily do, and not before!” the President said on Truth Social.
On Sunday, Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) predicted that running Gov. the shutdown will end Thank you note.
“There is an absolute need for this – and if we can get it open it needs to be opened today. So we made a motion literally 14 times, ‘Let’s open it today, let’s keep the conversation going,'” Lankford said.
The Hill has contacted the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Agriculture for comment.
The White House directed The Hill to OMB.
