A cashier scans items, including items covered by the USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), at a grocery store in Baltimore on Monday.
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
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Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended an order blocking full SNAP payments amid signals that the government shutdown could soon end and food assistance payments could resume.
Order preserves the chaotic situation for at least a few more days. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families received full monthly payments in some states, while others received nothing.
The order will expire shortly before midnight on Thursday.
The Senate has approved a bill to end the quarantine, and the House of Representatives could vote on it as early as Wednesday. The government reopening will restart a program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries, but it is unclear how quickly full payments will resume.
The justices took the path of least resistance, expecting the federal government shutdown to end soon while avoiding any substantive legal rulings on whether lower court rulings to maintain full pay during the shutdown were correct.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one of the nine justices to say she would immediately reinstate the lower court's rulings, but did not explain her vote otherwise. Jackson signed the original order temporarily freezing payments.
Beneficiaries in some states received full monthly allocations, while in others they received nothing. Some states have introduced partial payments.
How quickly SNAP benefits can reach recipients if the government reopens will depend on the state. But states and advocates say it's easier to make full payments faster than partial payments.
Caroline Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength, also said there may be some technical issues for states that issued partial benefits sending out the remaining amount.
Urgent need for beneficiaries
In Pennsylvania, some people were given full November benefits on Friday. But Jim Malliard, 41, of Franklin, said he had received nothing by Monday.
Malliard is a full-time caregiver for his wife, who is blind and has suffered several strokes this year, and his teenage daughter, who suffered serious medical complications after surgery last year.
That stress was only compounded by the suspension of the $350 monthly SNAP benefits he previously received for himself, his wife and daughter. He said he has $10 left in his account and is relying on what's left in the pantry – mostly rice and ramen.
“I spent a lot of nights trying to make sure I had every penny to make sure I was right,” Malliard said. “To say that anxiety has been my problem the last two weeks is putting it mildly.”
Political divisions in Washington shocked many Americans, and some were forced to help.
“I think I've spent money on stupider things than trying to feed other people during a man-made famine,” said Ashley Oxenford, a teacher who set up a “small food pantry” in her front yard this week for vulnerable neighbors in Carthage, New York.
SNAP is at the center of a bitter court battle.
The Trump administration decided to stop funding SNAP after October due to the shutdown. The decision sparked lawsuits and a series of swift and controversial court rulings affecting government power and affecting food access for about one in eight Americans.
The administration agreed with two Oct. 31 rulings by judges who said the government must provide at least partial funding for SNAP. Ultimately, it said recipients would receive up to 65% of their regular benefits. But it pushed back last week when a judge said it must fully fund the program through November, even if that means diverting funds the government says needs to be saved for emergencies elsewhere.
The US Supreme Court agreed to suspend the ruling.
The appeals court said Monday that full funding must be restored, a requirement that was set to take effect Tuesday night before the higher court extended an order blocking full SNAP benefits.
Congress debates reopening government
The U.S. Senate on Monday passed legislation to reopen the federal government with a plan that would include replenishing SNAP funds. Speaker Mike Johnson advised House members to return to Washington to review the deal struck by a small group of Senate Democrats with Republicans.
President Trump has not said whether he would sign it if it reaches his desk, but told reporters at the White House on Sunday that “it looks like we're getting closer to ending the shutdown.”
However, the Trump administration said in a filing to the Supreme Court on Monday that the courts should not decide the issue.
“The answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to redistribute resources without legal authority,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the papers. “The only way to end this crisis, which the Executive Branch is adamant about, is for Congress to reopen the government.”
Following Tuesday's ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media: “Thank you to the court for allowing Congress to continue its rapid progress.”
A coalition of cities and nonprofit groups that challenged the SNAP suspension said in a court filing Tuesday that the Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, is to blame for the confusion.
“The chaos was wreaked by USDA's delays and intransigence,” they said, “rather than by the district court's efforts to mitigate that chaos and the harm it caused to families in need of food.”
