The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay for a portion of November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the department said Monday in a brief to a federal court in Rhode Island.
The four-page report from the USDA answered U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order that President Donald Trump’s administration pay at least a portion of benefits to the 42 million people who receive assistance through the program by the end of Wednesday.
McConnell on Saturday laid out two options for the administration: pay for partial benefits by the end of Wednesday through a contingency fund holding about $5.5 billion, or pay for a full month of benefits by tapping other reserve sources such as the child nutrition program by the end of Monday.
USDA opted to use the contingency fund, giving the department until the end of Wednesday to pay out benefits.
A month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government about $9 billion.
USDA “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State,” Monday’s brief said. “USDA will therefore have made the necessary funds available and have authorized the States to begin disbursements once the table is issued.”
