USDA orders states to stop issuing full SNAP benefits and to ‘undo’ benefits sent for November

By Tami Luhby, Aileen Graef, CNN

(CNN) — The US Department of Agriculture ordered states to stop issuing full food stamp benefits for November and to “immediately undo” any issuance of the full allotments, after a Supreme Court justice on Friday paused a lower court order requiring the agency to pay Americans their full assistance.

In the Saturday directive, obtained by CNN, the USDA told states to instead proceed with issuing partial benefits that will provide recipients with 65% of their November allotments, as ordered by the same lower court judge earlier in the week.

“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, a top USDA official, wrote in the memo. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

States that fail to comply could face a cancellation of federal cost-sharing of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as well as be financially responsible for over issuances of benefits, the memo said.

This latest directive leaves in limbo the roughly 1 in 8 Americans who depend on the nation’s larger anti-hunger program. Over the past week, the USDA has issued guidance multiple times as lawsuits over the agency’s decision not to tap into a contingency fund to pay November benefits have worked their way through federal courts.

The latest guidance follows a memorandum from the department on Friday saying it was working to fully fund food stamp benefits for November to comply with a federal lower court order, and that the process should be completed later that day.

Several states quickly pounced on the news, saying the money should start flowing to recipients in coming days.

Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Friday that residents who should have already gotten their SNAP benefits this month will start getting their full payments on Friday. The next day, a Shapiro spokesperson told CNN that residents who received their benefits are able to spend them, but the state has paused issuing full allocations to additional people.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said Sunday that there’s “no clarity at all” in the guidance and that the administration is causing “intentional chaos.”

“Once we decided to step up and say we are going to make sure that our people are going to be OK … we’ve now received guidance saying the states are going to be punished for fronting the money,” Moore said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Legal battles

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday evening temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to cover full food stamp benefits, siding with the administration on a short-term basis in a legal fight that has quickly become a defining confrontation of the government shutdown.

The ruling meant the USDA does not have to immediately honor a lower court order that required it to transfer $4 billion to the key food assistance program.

Jackson’s ruling followed one a day earlier by US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island that directed the agency to make the full payments, reversing his own order from earlier in the month requiring the USDA to tap into its $5.3 billion contingency fund to pay at least partial benefits for the month.

His more expansive ruling mandated the agency shift tariff revenue meant for child nutrition programs to pay full SNAP benefits for November.

The food stamp program has been in legal limbo since last month, when officials said recipients would not receive their payments for November due to the lapse in appropriations for the government.

The decision prompted two lawsuits, with two federal judges ruling in recent weeks that the agency must at least pay partial benefits or, at its discretion, provide recipients with their full allotments.

The agency opted to provide partial payments — first saying states could issue 50% of the maximum benefit and then revising the figure to 65%. But the USDA warned it could take weeks or months for some states to recalculate the allotments and distribute the assistance.

The plaintiffs in the Rhode Island case raced back to McConnell last week to argue that he should require the USDA to fully fund the benefits to get the money out the door quickly.

McConnell obliged. He ruled the administration had not worked fast enough to ensure at least partial benefits reached millions of the program’s recipients and that it had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it decided against providing the full benefits this month.

Providing full benefits

Wisconsin immediately filed for 100% of its residents’ benefits to be placed on their electronic benefit transfer cards, according to the Department of Justice’s filing to the Supreme Court.

But the USDA rejected the request because it had not yet had time to comply with McConnell’s order. That resulted in the state overdrawing its letter of credit by $20 million.

Similarly, Kansas issued full benefits worth nearly $32 million to approximately 86,000 households in the state, the filing said.

These actions have hurt states that did not move quickly to issue benefits, according to the DOJ. They will be unable to receive funding to provide partial payments to their residents under McConnell’s prior order.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly reacted to the Supreme Court’s action in a statement Friday night, saying, “In accordance with a court’s order and after receiving guidance from the USDA, Kansas sent full November SNAP benefits to all eligible Kansans. These Kansans, most of them children, seniors or people with disabilities, were struggling to put food on their plates.”

North Carolina, which issued partial benefits to more than 586,000 households on Friday, said it was pausing the issuance of full benefits in light of the Supreme Court decision. It had hoped to issue them over the weekend.

“The hard-working people and families who rely on SNAP benefits deserve certainty, not confusion about whether they’ll be able to put meals on the table this weekend and the rest of the month,” North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement Saturday. “I am urging for a swift resolution by the courts and some humanity from the Trump administration so North Carolina families can receive the support they need.”

In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said that residents should continue spending the benefits on their EBT cards, noting the state funded them in accordance with USDA’s Friday guidance before the Supreme Court’s pause.

“If President Trump wants to penalize states for preventing Americans from going hungry, we will see him in court,” Healey said in a statement Sunday, adding that state officials will continue to work to “make sure everyone gets the full benefits they are owed.”

CNN is reaching out to other states to ask the status of their SNAP programs.

CNN’s John Fritze and Devan Cole contributed to this report.

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