By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday ordered U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to fully fund food aid for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, blocking its plan to only provide reduced benefits during the government shutdown.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island accused the administration of withholding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP or food stamps, for "political reasons" as he ordered the U.S. Department
of Agriculture to fund the program so people get 100% of their benefits.
"The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur," McConnell said during a virtual court hearing. "That's what irreparable harm here means."
The White House and USDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer with the Justice Department during the hearing blamed states, which administer SNAP benefits, for the delays in distributing reduced benefits.
SNAP benefits are paid out monthly to eligible Americans whose income is less than 130% of the federal poverty line. States handle the day-to-day administration of the benefits. The maximum monthly benefit for the 2026 fiscal year had been set at $298 for a one-person household and $546 for a two-person one.
The administration had originally planned to entirely suspend SNAP benefits in November, citing a lack of authorized funding from Congress as a result of the government shutdown, which is now in its 37th day.
McConnell and another judge in Boston last week ruled the administration was required to at least tap $5.25 billion in emergency funding to partially fund SNAP benefits, which cost $8.5 billion to $9 billion per month.
McConnell on Saturday gave the Trump administration the option of either using the contingency funding once it resolved the "administrative and clerical burdens" involved in paying reduced benefits or tapping additional funding to fully pay out November's SNAP benefits.
The USDA on Monday opted in light of his ruling to only use contingency funding, which after subtracting $600 million for the states' administrative costs in administering SNAP benefits would leave $4.65 billion to cover benefits.
The administration's decision to only partially fund SNAP has fueled uncertainty about how much and when households will receive their monthly food aid, prompting states to encourage SNAP recipients to budget and visit food pantries.
McConnell, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, on Thursday said the USDA in going that route failed to address a known problem that in some states, it could take weeks or months for them to change antiquated computer systems to process the reduced benefits, which has never been done before.
He agreed with lawyers for the cities and nonprofits at the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, who had sued over the suspension of SNAP benefits, that USDA had failed to address the administrative burdens partial benefits entailed and that as a result it needed to tap a $23.35 billion fund derived from tariffs that has been used for child nutrition programs.
In finding the administration had failed to comply with his earlier order, he pointed to a recent statement the Republican president had made that SNAP benefits would only be paid when the shutdown ended, which McConnell said reflected Trump's "intent to defy the court order."
"Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation's history," McConnell said. "This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided."
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Leah Douglas in Washington, Editing by Chris Reese, Alexia Garamfalvi and Alistair Bell)
