Two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to use a contingency fund to cover November SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans. Benefits are due to end Saturday as the government shutdown continues.
The rulings, however, don’t mean that SNAP benefits will be in recipient’s accounts in the morning.
Federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island rejected the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s claim that a $5.3 billion contingency fund could not be used. The fund was set up by Congress to cover Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits if they were interrupted or money wasn’t available to pay them.
U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell, in Rhode Island, ruled that the contingency fund is available to pay for SNAP and ordered that some of it be used to cover benefits, at least for part of the month. His ruling came shortly after U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, in Massachusetts, ruled that the federal government was not acting lawfully in withholding the money to pay for the program, and gave the Trump administration until Monday to tell the court how it would use the money to pay the benefits. McConnell also asked for an update by noon Monday.
The federal government did not immediately respond to the rulings.
The rulings came two days after 26 states filed suit in U.S. District Court requesting an injunction that would force the money to be used for SNAP. Talwani was ruling on that suit, which was filed in Massachusetts; McConnell was ruling on a separate suit file on behalf of a number of municipalities and organizations.
If SNAP benefits aren’t available Saturday, it will be the first time in the program’s 61-year history that benefits have been interrupted. The program, which was originally called Food Stamps, provides a monthly benefit to help supplement grocery costs. The average benefit in New Hampshire is $169.54 per recipient, according to most recent information available.
New Hampshire this week approved a plan that would funnel as much as $2 million in Medicaid Enhancement Tax revenues to the New Hampshire Food Bank to help the state’s 75,000 SNAP recipients put food on the table in November. The contract for that program between the state Department of Health and Human Services and the food bank is terminated if the federal government makes SNAP benefits available.
That plan would provide extra food pantry food and hours for SNAP recipients. Officials said it would take about a week to get up and running.
The USDA had in its September shutdown plan said it would use the fund if the government shutdown lasted past the end of October, but then said it couldn’t, because the money is for an “emergency,” citing Hurricane Melissa as one example.
But McConnell rejected that. “It’s clear that when compared to the millions of people that will go without funds for food versus the agency’s desire not to use contingency funds in case there’s a hurricane need, the balances of those equities clearly goes on the side of ensuring that people are fed,” he said.
McConnell, in his ruling, said, that there is “no doubt” the contingency fund money was appropriated “to carry out the program’s operation. The government shutdown, “doesn’t do away with SNAP, it just does away with the funding of it.”
McConnell also ruled that if the contingency money isn’t enough to pay SNAP benefits for November, which come to about $8 billion, the USDA must find another way to pay them.
Both judges said that money from the $23 billion Agricultural Adjustment Act fund, which was used to help cover Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) program during the shutdown and into November, can also be used for SNAP.