The US Supreme Court Friday temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to fully fund Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) food payments this month.
A judge had given the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through the SNAP program.
But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she had issued the pause, known as an administrative stay, to give the appeals court that will rule on the case additional time to consider the administration’s formal request to only partially fund SNAP payments for November.
The SNAP food assistance program is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program and covers roughly 42 million low-income Americans.
The program costs $8.5 billion to $9 billion per month and the Trump administration has said that it had only enough money to pay partial benefits this month because of the government shutdown.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
