The Trump administration said Monday it will pay partial food benefits this month after two federal judges ordered it to do so.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would pay benefits reduced by 50% to the 22 million households enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The agency warned there could be significant delays, however, as states adjust benefit amounts to reflect the reduction. November’s benefits were supposed to go out starting on Saturday.
The USDA previously said it couldn’t tap a contingency fund to pay November’s SNAP benefits during the ongoing government shutdown, which has dragged on since October as Senate Democrats refuse to vote for a government funding bill that doesn’t address the expiration of health insurance subsidies.
In response to lawsuits from nonprofits and Democratic states, judges in two separate federal courts said the USDA had misread the law and ordered the agency to pay either full or partial benefits.
“There is no question that the congressionally approved contingency funds must be used now because of the shutdown,” Judge John McConnell of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island said in a written order Saturday.
The USDA said in court Monday that the fund has $4.65 billion, enough money “to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments” this month, but warned it would be a difficult undertaking.
The agency said it wasn’t clear how many states “will complete the changes in an automated manner with minimal disruption versus manual overrides or computations that could lead to payment errors and significant delays.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has previously said November’s benefits would total around $9 billion.
In his Saturday order, McConnell had given the USDA the option of paying either full or partial benefits, noting that, in addition to its contingency fund, the agency could tap tariff revenue in an account currently stocked with $23 billion. The money is set aside for child nutrition programs such as school lunch and the USDA said it didn’t want to divert the funds.
“Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances,” the USDA said in court Monday.
The threat to food budgets for the 22 million households — containing 42 million people — enrolled in SNAP represented a major pressure point for Democrats in the government shutdown ― a pressure point Democrats said the Trump administration had sought to exploit by refusing to issue November’s benefits despite the money in the contingency fund.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Monday the administration should use the tariff money to pay the full benefit amount.
“The courts have ordered the administration to use its contingency fund to partially cover food assistance to families in need this month — and have made clear it can use its transfer authorities to fully fund SNAP,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “It is not enough to do the bare minimum — the administration should stop playing politics with hunger and use all available resources to ensure Americans can put food on the table.”
HuffPost readers: Do you get SNAP benefits? Have you missed your November payment? Tell us about it ― email arthur@huffpost.com. Please include your phone number if you’re willing to be interviewed.