A volunteer shows data on the Supplemental Dietary Help Program (SNAP) at a grocery retailer in Dorchester, Massachusetts, US, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025.
Mel Musto | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
The U.S. Division of Agriculture, in a memo late Saturday night, threatened to enact monetary penalties on states that issued full month-to-month SNAP advantages for November if they do not “undo” these meals stamp funds.
The late-night directive from the Trump administration provides to the chaos surrounding the anti-hunger program that serves greater than 42 million People.
The memo, signed by Patrick Penn, Deputy Beneath Secretary of the USDA’s Meals, Vitamin, and Client Companies, warned states that the administration had not cleared full SNAP profit funds for November.
“To the extent States despatched full SNAP fee information for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” the memo mentioned.
State program directors have been directed to distribute 65% partial funds of SNAP advantages for the month as a substitute, the memo mentioned.
States should additionally “instantly undo any steps taken to situation full SNAP advantages for November 2025,” the memo mentioned. Failure to conform may outcome within the USDA cancelling the federal share of administration prices or holding states financially accountable for “any overissuances that outcome from the noncompliance.”
It was unclear how the USDA expects states to claw again any unauthorized SNAP funds.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., blasted the Trump administration’s transfer.
“The cruelty is the purpose. It’s their selection to do that,” Klobuchar wrote in a submit on the social media website X.
The USDA and the White Home didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
The memo was first reported by The New York Instances.
It comes as some states scrambled to adjust to a courtroom ruling on Thursday, when a federal decide in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to pay full SNAP advantages for November on Friday. The decide rejected the administration’s plan to partially fund the meals stamp program amid the U.S. authorities shutdown.
The USDA subsequently informed states that it might start disbursing full SNAP advantages to adjust to that order, even because the ruling confronted an enchantment from the Trump administration.
The Related Press reported late Friday that greater than half a dozen states had “confirmed that some SNAP recipients already have been issued full November funds on Friday.”
The administration requested the first Circuit U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for an emergency injunction to dam the order that it pay full meals stamp advantages pending the end result of its enchantment of that order. A 3-judge panel on the appeals courtroom denied that request on Friday.
However inside hours, Supreme Courtroom Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson quickly paused the order. Jackson directed the first Circuit to shortly rule on the administration’s movement to impose an indefinite keep on the decrease courtroom’s order mandating full advantages.
The Trump administration beforehand mentioned that it might not use a contingency fund containing $4.65 billion to fund the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program in November.
U.S. District Courtroom of Rhode Island Choose Jack McConnell on Oct. 31 informed the administration to make use of that fund to pay partial advantages, at the least, and to discover different choices to supply full advantages.
The administration, days later, mentioned it might pay 65% of the advantages, however dominated out utilizing so-called Part 32 funds to make up the distinction.
The overall value of full SNAP advantages for the month is round $8 billion.
This system, like different federal packages, has no at the moment appropriated cash, because of Congress failing to move a spending invoice. That failure led to the U.S. authorities shutdown on Oct. 1. Hopes that the shutdown could also be nearing an finish have been buoyed Sunday night after Senate lawmakers took a crucial step in the direction of a possible deal to reopen the federal government, however there are not any ensures lawmakers will come to an settlement anytime quickly.
Previous administrations have continued paying SNAP advantages throughout prior shutdowns.
