Shutdowns, Statutes, and the Safety Net: The Constitutional Stakes of Withholding SNAP Benefits

Credit: Stock Images

When the federal government shutdown stretched into November 2025, the country’s main food assistance program demonstrated just how quickly a political standoff can become a human emergency. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program supports roughly 42 million Americans every month, and for many families, this monthly benefit is the difference between putting food on the table and skipping meals for the week. In early November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told states it could not issue full November benefits without a new congressional appropriation and that the department would instead use contingency funds to cover only partial payments, a move that immediately generated lawsuits from states, cities, and nonprofit groups and frantic calls from families and food banks.

On November 6, a federal judge in Rhode Island, John J. McConnell Jr., concluded that the partial payments plan risked irreparable harm to recipients, and subsequently ordered the administration to fully fund the November benefits. The decision stated that  the agency could and should use contingency or other available funding instead of leaving millions of people with reduced benefits. The decision rested on the immediate human consequences of withholding assistance and on statutory text that authorizes funding for the program.

The Trump administration moved quickly to appeal. Its lawyers argued that forcing the executive to spend money that Congress has not appropriated would violate the separation of powers, and the agency did not have the authority to reallocate funds in the way that the district court demanded. The department filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court and asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for an administrative stay of the district court’s order.

Justice Jackson granted the administrative stay on November 7, which temporarily paused the lower court’s mandate while the First Circuit Court of Appeals considered the government’s motion. The administrative stay was intended to be short-lived, but it produced immediate confusion. Some states had already moved to issue full benefits after the lower court’s ruling, but were now being told by the USDA to halt those processes or face financial penalties if they proceeded in defiance of the new guidance. The memo to states deepened what state officials described as administrative chaos.

Two days later, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s  bid to block the district court order, and told the administration that the lower court’s rationale about harm to recipients was persuasive. The appeals court framed the question in stark practical terms and noted the likely consequences of withholding benefits for families as winter approached. Even after that ruling, the Supreme Court extended its temporary pause on full payments through at least November 11, which left states operating under conflicting instructions from courts and from the federal government. 

The legal dispute is driven by a tension between two competing legal frameworks. On one side is the appropriations law and the ordinary rule that federal agencies cannot obligate funds that Congress has not provided. On the other side is the statutory design of SNAP, which is administered under the Food and Nutrition Act that Congress has repeatedly funded as a program to ensure access to food for qualifying individuals. The district court emphasized the immediate statutory purpose and the harms of reduced benefits. The government, on the other hand, emphasized institutional prerogatives and the risk to other nutrition programs if funds were shifted to cover the shortfall. Those arguments about institutional competence and budgeting are important, but they play out against the immediate reality of families waiting for EBT deposits.

The consequences of this jurisprudence quarrel have been both practical and political. State officials reported confusion, and in some places, food banks reported rising demand within days of the halt. Governors from both parties publicly criticised the USDA memo telling states to undo benefits, calling it an impossible posture for state agencies that had relied on the district court decision. Meanwhile, advocacy groups argued that using the shutdown as leverage to delay or cut benefits was an unacceptable politicization of a program that serves low-income children and elderly people.

This confrontation also sits inside a larger policy project pursued by the administration this year, which has included proposals to tighten work requirements for some SNAP recipients and to give states more discretion in defining eligibility and allowable purchases. That policy agenda frames the present dispute in a broader light. If the courts accept the administration’s argument that appropriations lapses let the executive suspend or curtail benefits, then future shutdowns could become a mechanism to reshape entitlement programs by pressure rather than by legislation. If the courts insist that statutory entitlements continue despite appropriations fights, then Congress will remain the central actor responsible for avoiding such humanitarian gaps. 

For SNAP advocates, the answer to this question has been straightforward. The program is designed to prevent hunger, and it cannot fulfill that purpose if benefits arrive late, are reduced, or are clawed back after issuance. For the administration, the answer has also been straightforward. Budgetary and constitutional constraints limit the executive branch's ability to spend money without congressional appropriation. The courts must weigh those competing claims while millions of people wait to see whether their grocery cards will be loaded this month.

What happens next matters for more than just one monthly payment. A Supreme Court ruling that allows the executive to withhold or reallocate funds during an appropriations lapse would change how mandatory programs function during a political stalemate. A ruling that enforces uninterrupted benefits would reinforce the norm that Congress cannot use shutdowns to inflict temporary deprivation on the most vulnerable. Either way, the outcome will leave its mark on the institutional balance between branches and on the lived experience of low-income families who depend on SNAP. In the meantime, the courts, the USDA, and the states must grapple with both legal doctrine and operational reality while families count the days until their next deposits. 

Lavleen Kaur Madahar is a senior from New Jersey studying International and Public Affairs. She is a blog writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at lavleen_madahar@brown.edu. 

Navyaa Jain is a Junior studying Computer Science and Economics. She is a staff editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at navyaa_jain@brown.edu.
Danny Moylan is a sophomore from Massachusetts studying Political Science and International & Public Affairs. He is a staff editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review, and can be contacted at daniel_moylan@brown.edu.