Overview
- U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. directed the government to fund SNAP in full for November by Friday, faulting the partial-payment plan as causing immediate harm.
- The Justice Department filed an emergency request with the First Circuit to pause the ruling, contending courts cannot compel spending and warning there is no legal basis to locate roughly $4 billion more.
- A USDA memo told states it was working to make full-month funds available Friday, and officials in California and Wisconsin said some recipients received full benefits Thursday night.
- Several states are still processing partial payments based on earlier guidance that capped November benefits at about 65% after a federal calculation error was corrected from an initially reported 50% cut.
- SNAP serves about 42 million people, with November costs estimated at $8–9 billion versus roughly $4.65–5 billion in contingency funds, leading some states and localities to deploy their own stopgap aid.