Seesaw Legal Battle Leaves Food Stamp Recipients Waiting To Learn Whether They Will Receive Full Benefits This Month

American food stamp recipients are once more left wondering when, if, and to what extent they can expect to receive benefits this month as a seesaw legal battle works its way through the courts.In the latest development Friday evening, a Biden-appointed Supreme Court justice temporarily stayed a lower court’s day-old order requiring the Trump administration to fully fund November payments under the program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that the administration can continue to fund the program at a lower level until such time as the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals decides on a Rhode Island district court judge’s order that the program must be fully funded.Justice Jackson noted that the appeals court had indicated it expects to release that ruling “as quickly as possible.” Once that decision is delivered, the administration will have 48 hours to appeal.For the 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps to fully feed their families, any kind of certainty cannot come soon enough. Private sector food banks across the country say they have been deluged with unprecedented demand since the program was disrupted on November 1 as a result of the record government shutdown.The president and CEO of Houston Food Bank, Brian Greene, described the situation in his city to CNBC as “a rolling disaster.” He told the network: “Every day that this keeps going, the damage gets worse and worse.”The whipsawing legal rulings have also left state governments – which administer the program – confused and uncertain how to proceed. Several states had already begun distributing the full SNAP payments in response to Thursday’s ruling before Justice Jackson stepped in, according to the AP.In a letter to the directors of its seven regional offices earlier Friday, the USDA’s Food and Nutritional Service said it would shortly “complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your [Electronic Benefit Transfer] processor,” the Hill reported.The Trump administration agreed last week to comply with an earlier court order requiring that it tap into an emergency fund, enabling it to cover roughly half of the $8.5 billion to $9 billion cost of the program for the month.In his ruling Thursday in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., ordered the Agriculture Department to tap into a separate fund to cover the balance of the cost, suggesting the decision to withhold the funding was political.Justice Department attorneys appealed, arguing that depleting that account risks shortchanging other programs, such as school meals.The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals declined Friday to put an immediate hold on Judge McConnell’s order, leaving it for Justice Jackson to do so later in the day.

Seesaw Legal Battle Leaves Food Stamp Recipients Waiting To Learn Whether They Will Receive Full Benefits This Month

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