Trump administration appeals order to fully fund SNAP benefits for November

Source: Scripps News

Posted 4:23 PM, Nov 06, 2025 and last updated 1 hour and 21 minutes ago


A federal judge in Rhode Island on Thursday ordered the Trump Administration to fully fund nationwide SNAP benefits for the month of November. The Trump administration immediately appealed that order and earlier court decisions that required it to make at least partial payments to the SNAP program.

The order issued Thursday requires that full funding be delivered to states no later than Friday, Nov. 7, from additional money held in reserve by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr.'s decision comes after a coalition of cities and nonprofit groups argued that a proposal to partially fund SNAP payments was insufficient. The judge on Thursday agreed, saying the government had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" when it chose to only partially fund SNAP in November.

“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” he wrote in the order. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individual who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/politics/the-president/federal-judge-orders-trump-administration-to-fully-fund-snap-benefits-for-november

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Link to FILING (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.60750/gov.uscourts.rid.60750.32.0.pdf

As a sidenote - Ketanji Brown Jackson is assigned to the First Circuit for emergency appeals to the SCOTUS when that happens (and it will), although she would still have to solicit the rest on whether they want to take it.