The Trump administration has agreed to use $4.65 billion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) contingency fund to cover 50% of eligible households' current allotments of food assistance for November 2025. The decision comes after court rulings ordered the government to act to restore benefits, which had lapsed over the weekend amid the ongoing government shutdown. However, no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely.
The Trump administration will cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments of food assistance by tapping into contingency funds, according to an approach outlined Monday in response to court rulings that ordered the government to act to restore benefits.
“Per orders issued by the United States District Courts for the Districts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, FNS intends to deplete SNAP contingency funds completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025,” Trump administration Deputy Undersecretary for Food Nutrition and Consumer Services Patrick Penn said in a filing in a Rhode Island U.S. District Court.
Following Friday’s court rulings, the Trump administration faced a Monday deadline to tell judges in Rhode Island and Massachusetts whether it would tap contingency funds to keep the SNAP program running.
According to the filing from Penn, Food and Nutrition Service had $6 billion in SNAP contingency funds at the beginning of fiscal year 2026. In October, the agency used $450 million to fund state agency expenses, and an additional $300 million for grants for Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
The court orders came as food assistance for roughly 42 million Americans, including more than one million in Massachusetts, lapsed over the weekend amid the ongoing government shutdown.
“The above will leave a total of $4.65 billion in the contingency fund for November SNAP benefits that will all be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments. This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely,” Penn wrote.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island gave the Trump administration until noon on Monday to report to the court on “what it will do to comply” with his order to use the contingency fund to pay for suspended SNAP benefits.
In a Boston federal court, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani also ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to report by Monday whether it will use contingency funds to pay November benefits in full or partially.
On Truth Social Friday night, President Donald Trump posted that his administration’s lawyers “do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available,” calling the court rulings “conflicting opinions.”
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay,” Trump added.
“I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” Trump said, urging SNAP recipients to contact Senate Democrats directly.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who helped bring the Boston case, called Friday’s decision “a much-needed step in the right direction” but warned that the impact of the shutdown will still be severe.
“Today, as millions of Americans go into this weekend unsure of how they will buy food, the Court has affirmed that USDA is legally required to utilize the SNAP contingency fund to pay for benefits during the government shutdown,” Campbell said on Friday. “It is unacceptable that our federal government has put us in the position of having to fight to help feed our residents.”
The state Department of Transitional Assistance said on its website Monday, “If you need help, call Project Bread at (800) 645-8333. It is currently unclear when November benefits will begin to be paid and in what amount. DTA will provide information to clients as soon as possible, including at mass.gov/SNAPupdates.”
Speaking to reporters Monday before the Trump administration’s court filing, Gov. Maura Healey said the state is prepared to move quickly once federal funds are released.
“It just — that does take a couple of days to do,” she said of reloading food benefit cards. “We know, because of President Trump’s freezing of these SNAP benefits, we’re already going to be delayed in getting these cards loaded and getting benefits out the door to people. But I can tell you, our team is ready to go as soon as this funding is released.”
Asked if she worried the contingency funds would be insufficient, Healey replied, “They’re better than what we have right now. But they can’t last indefinitely, which is why government needs to reopen.”
Healey also noted that other programs have frozen during the shutdown, including heating assistance for seniors and low-income residents (LIHEAP) and Head Start pre-school programs.
The administration is using $13 million in federal Home Energy Assistance Program funding remaining from last year to support households with a heating emergency in the short term while the shutdown continues. Heating emergencies include not having any heat, receiving a termination notice from a utility, having less than 1/8 of a tank of oil, or having less than three days’ supply of other deliverable fuels, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
Six Head Start programs in Massachusetts said they did not receive their scheduled payments on Nov. 1, and had to close their centers in Brockton and Norwood starting Monday, leaving 550 children without care and over 150 staff members furloughed.
DTA officials said the shutdown has compounded challenges for SNAP recipients from new eligibility and work requirements approved by Congress and President Trump this year.
“President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress have created this crisis,” the agency says on its public information page, estimating that the law’s changes could eventually affect more than 150,000 Massachusetts households.
Programs like the Healthy Incentives Program and Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children remain operational, they say.
Over the past week, state officials have debated whether they can cover any of the $240 million Massachusetts gets every month to pay for SNAP. The Trump administration’s filing on Monday changes the calculus, but state officials are still facing questions about filling the financial gap.
Both House and Senate Ways and Means chairs said on Monday morning, before the Trump administration court filings, that “everything is on the table” as they explore ways to support struggling federal programs like SNAP during the shutdown.
Some advocates have urged the state to tap its $8 billion rainy day fund to backfill food assistance, while Senate Republicans have suggested using a regular state appropriations instead.
Democratic leaders have been cautious about drawing from the stabilization fund to replace federal spending, and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said he sent a letter Friday to credit rating agencies asking how such a move would be viewed.
“We sent a letter on Friday to the credit agencies to ask them what the usage of the rainy day fund on replacing any federal programs like SNAP, for instance, or LIHEAP — what would that do, by using that and with the idea of not necessarily getting a reimbursement?” Michlewitz said.
The state raised its bond rating for the first time in over a decade just a few years ago, Michlewitz noted. The bond rating “is critical to paying for a lot of the other crisis issues that we deal with, like housing and environmental and a whole host of other pieces that we’ve done over the last couple of years,” he added.
Asked by a reporter Monday whether he was more open to tapping into the Rainy Day Fund, eight years after the state received a bond rating downgrade for spending out of that fund, Mariano pointed to the current unusual situation.
“Listen, this is unprecedented times,” Mariano said. “We don’t know how long this federal government is going to be shut down. We don’t know what else is going to be demanded of us to supply our constituents with, the things they need to survive.”
He continued, “So we’re concerned about drawing down anything from the rainy day fund, we wanted to be perfectly clear where the parameters were and what we are able to do to make sure our constituents can meet the challenges that are being faced by the federal shutdown.”
[Alison Kuznitz contributed to this reporting.]