US Supreme Court blocks food aid supplement

2025-11-08 10:12:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The US Supreme Court has issued an emergency order that temporarily allows the Trump administration to suspend billions of dollars in funding for food benefits used by millions of low-income Americans.

The White House appealed to the nation's highest court after a lower court ruled that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, must be paid in full to beneficiaries by Friday.

The program has been left in limbo by the ongoing federal government shutdown, with the Trump administration arguing it can only afford a portion of its funding.

Friday's decision means $4 billion (£3.04 billion) could be temporarily suspended pending further legal hearings.

The Snap app is launched by 42 million Americans, about one in eight, and costs almost $9 billion (£6.9 billion) a month.

On Thursday, a Rhode Island judge, John McConnell, accused the Trump administration of suspending food aid "for political reasons" and said that without aid "16 million children are immediately at risk of starvation."

He ordered the administration to pay for the program in full.

Thursday's decision followed another that ordered the administration to tap emergency funds to at least partially fund the program through November.

The legal saga was sparked after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the Snap program, announced that benefits would be terminated in November due to a lack of funding during the shutdown.

Before the Supreme Court intervened, the USDA said it was working to comply with the various court orders and was taking steps to distribute all funds.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the order late Friday, known as an administrative stay, effectively freezing the lower court's decision for two days while government lawyers pursue an appeal.

The debate over food aid funding has become one of the most bitter of what is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Government workers have been without pay for more than a month and air travel has been plunged into chaos as Democratic and Republican lawmakers fail to agree on a deal to fund the government.

Several states have drawn down their financial reserves to maintain Snap payments, which cost about $6 to recipients via pre-loaded debit cards that can be used at grocery stores.

But some states have said they are unable to replace the funds that have been lost from the federal government./CNA, translated by BBC