What Just Happened With SNAP? A Full Breakdown of the Turmoil, the Lawsuits, and Where Things Stand Now

By April Love, Gray Norton (Clinical Instructors), Katharine Stecher, and Taylor Walden (FLPC Students)

This year, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has undergone one of the most turbulent periods in its modern history. What began as a warning in October about expiring funding, escalated into multi-state litigation, conflicting federal directives, emergency appeals to the Supreme Court, and a wave of confusion among state agencies scrambling to determine how much assistance to provide while also trying to assess the risk of federal penalties for trying to feed their residents.   

Now that Congress has passed a continuing resolution funding SNAP through September 2026, the immediate crisis has stabilized for now. But understanding how we got here is essential. The events of the past few months reveal how fragile SNAP is when agency guidance shifts rapidly, appropriations lapse, and courts issue conflicting instructions on an emergency basis. 

The Lead-Up: How the Funding Crisis Began 

SNAP is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program, helping roughly 42 million people put food on the table every month. The program’s modest benefits require around $8 billion per month in federal spending, making stable annual appropriations essential. 

To protect against interruptions during federal shutdowns, Congress typically authorizes contingency funds. For FY24, Congress appropriated $3 billion in contingency funds, available for two years. On September 30th, as the government edged toward a shutdown, USDA’s official Lapse of Funding Plan signaled that these contingency reserves would be used to continue SNAP operations if needed, which aligned with the agency’s plans for previous shutdowns. USDA typically sends SNAP benefits to states in advance of the start of the month. As a result, state agencies received October SNAP benefits before the shutdown began on October 1 and could distribute them, preventing the crisis from beginning much earlier. 

Yet, the plan was short-lived, and on October 25th, the USDA reversed course by announcing that it would not use the contingency funds to administer SNAP if the government remained under a shutdown at the start of fiscal year 2026 (FY26) on November 1st. USDA argued that the reserves could only supplement existing appropriations, not replace them entirely. Because no FY26 appropriations existed due to the shutdown, USDA claimed it lacked the authority to continue issuing benefits.  

This represented a stark departure from prior practice and instantly put tens of millions of households at risk of losing most or all of their November benefits.  

Lawsuits Emerge to Avoid the Pause in Benefits  

The USDA’s sudden reversal (and signal that SNAP benefits would not flow to states as planned) triggered two major lawsuits in federal district courts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. What follows is a brief outline of the timeline from those cases and the actions the USDA took in response.  

1. The Massachusetts Case (Filed October 28th) 

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia filed suit in the Massachusetts district court, arguing that USDA is legally obligated to use the contingency funds until exhausted and cannot unilaterally halt benefits during a lapse in appropriations. They sought injunctions requiring USDA to continue full benefit payments. 

2. The Rhode Island Case (Filed October 30th) 

Households, churches, and nonprofits then filed a separate lawsuit in the Rhode Island district court, arguing that USDA’s halt exceeded its legal authority and would cause immediate and irreparable harm to families who rely on SNAP for basic food access. 

The Legal Back-and-Forth 

• The Rhode Island lawsuit quickly resulted in a judicial order directing USDA to use contingency funds to keep the program operating. The day before, in the Massachusetts case, Judge Talwani said that the administration was statutorily mandated to use the SNAP contingency reserve funds, and she gave the USDA until November 3^rd to state whether it would issue at least partial benefits. 

• In response to the Rhode Island case, USDA submitted a sworn declaration on November 3rd, estimating how much remained in the contingency fund and determining that it could issue only 50% of SNAP benefits absent new appropriations. The agency then published guidance on November 4th for its plan to provide only 50% of November benefits.  

• But by November 5th, the USDA determined that its previous calculations were incorrect and submitted a new declaration, claiming that 65% of normal benefits could be issued for November.  

Courts Order USDA to Issue Full Benefits, but USDA Says It Cannot 

• On November 6th, the federal district court in Rhode Island issued an oral order requiring USDA to issue full November benefits by November 7th. 

• USDA appealed immediately but simultaneously issued guidance to all state SNAP agencies stating that the agency was working toward implementing full November issuances and would make funds available so states could transmit full issuance files to their EBT processors. 

• Many states interpreted the guidance as a green light to move forward with full benefits. Some states issued full benefits within hours. At this point, no federal guidance warned states against issuing full benefits or suggested that doing so might later be penalized. 

The Legal Landscape Shifts Again and States Are Caught in the Middle 

While states were starting to process full benefits, the Trump Administration sought emergency relief to avoid complying with the district court order: 

•  On November 7th, the First Circuit declined to issue an administrative stay of the Rhode Island district court’s order but was still considering the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. In other words, the First Circuit did not grant the request to pause the district court’s order immediately (usually for a short time), and it was still deciding if it would pause the district court’s order for the duration of the appeal. 

• The Administration then immediately sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, requesting an immediate administrative stay by 9:30 pm ET on November 7th. 

• Late that night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an administrative stay, pausing the USDA’s full funding obligation until 48 hours after the First Circuit decided whether to issue the stay pending appeal. 

This course of events created an extraordinary situation. States were trying to follow the USDA’s latest guidance to issue full SNAP benefits, even as the USDA was asking higher courts to allow it to issue reduced benefits to states. 

USDA Reverses Course Again, Ordering States to Undo Payments 

• Late on Saturday, November 8th, USDA issued new guidance instructing states to undo any steps taken to provide full benefits, and implement a 35% reduction for November. The directive warned that states could face penalties if they failed to comply. 

• State agencies immediately objected to USDA’s abrupt reversal. Many had already transmitted full-benefit files based on the November 7th guidance and explained in court filings that rolling back those transmissions was technically impossible. States also warned that implementing USDA’s percentage-based reductions would require extensive system rewrites and could delay benefits for weeks or even months. 

• In Massachusetts, the court handling the multi-state lawsuit moved quickly to address these concerns. Judge Indira Talwani issued an electronic order treating the states’ most recent filing as an amended request for a temporary restraining order and required USDA to respond. Specifically, the court directed USDA to address the states’ request that the agency hold them harmless for any errors that occur in November 2025 and in the months immediately following any partial benefit issuance. Judge Talwani also made clear that USDA should assume full financial responsibility for any errors that arise while the states work to provide partial benefits. 

The First Circuit Weighs in and the Supreme Court Pauses Again 

On November 9th, the First Circuit declined to pause the Rhode Island district court’s order requiring full benefits. This sent the issue back to the Supreme Court, where Justice Jackson requested additional briefing from both sides. Then, the Supreme Court indicated that it would not decide whether USDA could provide only partial benefits until after the House voted on a continuing resolution—or after November 13th at the earliest. 

In the meantime, states remained in limbo, unsure whether to expect penalties for issuing full benefits or unable to comply with directives to reduce them. 

Congress Acts: A Continuing Resolution Stabilizes SNAP, for Now 

Congress has now passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) that fully funds SNAP through September 2026. The CR resolved the immediate funding crisis and removed the possibility of future benefit cuts tied to the shutdown.  

Still, it did not resolve (1) whether USDA acted lawfully in halting or reducing November benefits, (2) whether states can be penalized for issuing full benefits on November 7^th, or (3) what happens to states that already transmitted full-benefit files. A determination of the legality of November’s actions may or may not come, but for now, benefits will no longer be affected.  

What This All Means 

The chaos created by the government shut down illustrates the vulnerabilities and confusion that lapses in critical benefits funding create. Millions of households were left uncertain not only about how much they would receive but also whether they would receive anything at all. States were forced to make near-immediate decisions with enormous financial consequences based on rapidly changing information. 

Although Congress’s continuing resolution brought temporary stability, the events of November highlighted a broader question policymakers will need to confront: how to safeguard SNAP from becoming collateral damage during political standoffs. Even with the resolution of November’s funding issue in the rear view, SNAP remains a topic of discussion at the state and federal levels and could still be a potential target of the current administration, underscoring the volatility of food access and the need for continued advocacy in the nutrition space.  

---