Washington: The US Supreme Court has issued an emergency order permitting the Trump administration to temporarily withhold billions of dollars in funding for food benefits relied upon by millions of low-income Americans.
The decision follows an appeal by the White House after a lower court ruled that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, must be paid out in full to recipients. The Trump administration argued that due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, it could only afford to partially fund the programme.
Under the Supreme Court’s ruling, approximately $4 billion (£3.04 billion) can now be withheld pending further legal proceedings. The SNAP programme supports about 42 million Americans, roughly one in eight and costs nearly $9 billion (£6.9 billion) each month.
Rhode Island Judge John McConnell had accused the administration of using food aid as a political weapon, warning that without immediate payments, 16 million children are at risk of going hungry. John McConnell ordered full payments to resume, citing the urgency of the situation.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA), which manages SNAP, had earlier announced that benefits would be halted in November due to funding shortfalls caused by the shutdown. Before the Supreme Court’s intervention, the USDA said it was attempting to comply with multiple court orders and was preparing to distribute the full amount of benefits.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the administrative stay, freezing McConnell’s ruling and allowing more time for the appeals court to review the case. The legal battle comes as senators remain in Washington over the weekend, seeking to end the shutdown that has dragged on since October 1, now the longest in US history. The impasse has left hundreds of thousands of government workers without pay and caused widespread disruption, including delays in air travel.
In response to the crisis, some states have drawn from their own reserves to continue SNAP payments, which provide about $6 per day per recipient via pre-loaded debit cards. However, several states have said they cannot fully compensate for the loss of federal funding.
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