The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition 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 the contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue partial SNAP payments planned for the month.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said he released the brakesThat’s what’s 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 for only partial SNAP payments for November.
The SNAP food assistance program is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program and covers approximately 42 million low-income Americans.
The program costs $8.5 billion to $9 billion a month and the Trump administration has said it only had enough money to pay partial benefits this month because of the government shutdown.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar