A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin next week to block nutrition assistance funding for states led by Democrats that have not provided data on fraud in the program, Secretary Brooke Rollins told President Donald Trump at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

USDA sought data from states earlier this year related to their administration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, Rollins said Tuesday. She added the data was needed to address fraud that she called “rampant” in the program that helps 42 million people afford groceries.

Most states complied with the request, but 21, mostly run by Democrats, refused, she said. A USDA spokesperson later implied the department was missing data from 22 states.

“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply, and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” Rollins said.

A USDA spokesperson in an email listed 28 states, plus one territory, from which they said the department has received data.

That would leave the following 22 states, all led by Democratic governors, that have not provided data: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. 

The spokesperson provided some additional details of the initiative, including that the department was targeting administrative funds, and that the next step would be a formal warning.

Blue states sought to protect bad actors, including criminals and immigrants in the country without legal status, “over the American taxpayer,” the statement said.

“We have sent Democrat States yet another request for data, and if they fail to comply, they will be provided with formal warning that USDA will pull their administrative funds,” the spokesperson said.

Court records show the department sent the states a new request for data on Nov. 28, and asked for a response within seven days, which would be Friday. 

The letter was reproduced as part of a suit the 22 states have brought against the administration over the request for SNAP recipients’ data.

Leading Dem calls threat illegal

It’s unclear what authority Rollins would have to block funding, which Congress has appropriated.

The federal government pays for all benefits for SNAP, which was formerly known as food stamps. It splits the administrative costs with states.

The USDA spokesperson did not answer a direct question about the legal authority for withholding funds.

Democrats on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee said any effort to block SNAP funding would be illegal.

“Yet again, Trump and Rollins are illegally threatening to withhold federal dollars,” a social media post from an official account of committee Democrats read. “SNAP has one of the lowest fraud rates of any government program, but Trump continues to weaponize hunger.”

The committee’s lead Democrat, Angie Craig of Minnesota, issued her own statement that also accused the administration of “weaponizing hunger” and said Rollins “continues to spew propaganda.”

“Her disregard for the law and willingness to lie through her teeth comes from the very top – the Trump administration is as corrupt as it is lawless, and I will not sit silently as she carries out the president’s campaign against Americans struggling to afford food in part because of this president’s tariffs and disastrous economic policies.”  

SNAP fraud

The data USDA has sought from states includes verification of SNAP recipients’ eligibility, along with a host of personal information such as Social Security numbers.

An early USDA review of data provided by the 28 states and Guam “indicates an estimated average of $24 million dollars per day of federal funds is lost to fraud and errors undetected by States in their administration of SNAP,” the department said in the Nov. 28 letter.

Preventing those losses could save up to $9 billion per year, the letter added.

But the types of fraud cited in some of the public statements from Rollins and the department are rare, existing data show.

A 2023 USDA report showed about 26,000 applications, roughly 0.1% of the households enrolled in SNAP, were referred for an administrative or criminal review.

People in the country illegally have never been authorized to receive SNAP benefits.

“The long-standing data sources indicate that intentional fraud by participants is rare,” Katie Bergh, a senior food assistance policy analyst for the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a November interview.

Trump administration target

SNAP has been a consistent target for cuts during Trump’s second presidency.

The issue was a focal point during the six-week government shutdown, during which the administration reversed itself often but generally resisted calls — from states, advocates, lawmakers and federal judges — to fund food assistance.

Shortly after the government reopened, Rollins in television interviews said she would force all recipients to reapply for benefits, a proposal seen as logistically challenging by program experts.

And the Republican taxes and spending law passed by Congress and signed by Trump earlier this year included new work requirements and other restrictions on SNAP eligibility that advocates say will lead to major drops in benefits. 

The law will also make states pay for some share of benefits and increase the share of administrative costs that states are responsible for, potentially leading some states to cut benefits.

A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday to pay roughly $9 billion for a full month of nutrition assistance benefits by the next day.

Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the administration blew its chance to choose to pay only partial benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, when it failed to release funds by a Wednesday deadline.

He said a social media post by President Donald Trump showed the president sought to use hunger for political leverage during the government shutdown, which stretched into day 37 on Thursday.

Earlier, in a Friday oral order that he expanded in a Saturday written order, McConnell had said the government must either pay full benefits by Monday or partial benefits from a contingency fund by Wednesday. 

The government did neither, he said Thursday.

The administration had argued it was impossible to pay the benefits, which go to 42 million Americans, within a few days, saying that the USDA had never calculated partial benefits and that coordinating new payments for SNAP, a federally funded program administered by the states, was difficult. 

The administration quickly appealed the ruling to the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

“Today is a major victory for 42 million people in America. The court could not be more clear – the Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people’s lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the coalition challenging the administration.

‘USDA cannot now cry’

But McConnell said the department created the problem, in part by failing to prepare for it far earlier. USDA was obligated to spend from a contingency fund to ensure SNAP benefits flowed into November uninterrupted, he said. 

“USDA did not do so,” he said. “Even when Nov. 1 came, USDA refused to use the congressionally mandated contingency funds. USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments.

“USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem by ignoring the congressionally mandated contingency funds and failing to timely notify the states.”

McConnell also pointed to Trump’s post on Truth Social on Tuesday that indicated he would not authorize payments consistent with the judge’s order until Democrats agreed to his terms to end the government shutdown.

“The day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order when he said, ‘SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens,’” McConnell said Thursday.

Child nutrition funding suggested

The USDA had said it would pay only partial November benefits from a contingency fund holding about $4.5 billion, rather than tap into other money at its disposal, including a $23 billion fund for child nutrition programs.

The coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the administration to pay SNAP benefits for November has argued the court should force USDA to pay full benefits for November. 

In addition to the missed Wednesday deadline, the move violated a fundamental administrative law requiring federal agencies not to make arbitrary and capricious decisions, Kristin Bateman of the Democracy Forward Foundation, which is representing the groups, said Thursday.

The child nutrition program would not need its billions of dollars until June, she said, meaning that transferring funds for SNAP would only actually hurt the child nutrition program if the shutdown persists until then.

“A decision on such a highly unlikely set of events is not reasoned decision-making,” Bateman said. “It’s particularly unreasonable because the defendants have not explained why they would choose to let 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, go hungry now in order to guard against the extreme outside chance that come June, there won’t be enough money to fund child nutrition programs.”

McConnell agreed that invoking the child nutrition fund was “entirely pretextual,” which was demonstrated in part by Trump’s post and other statements by administration officials.

“The defendants’ stated desire to conserve funding for the child nutrition programs is entirely pretextual, given the numerous statements made in recent weeks by the president and his administration officials who admit to withholding full SNAP benefits for political reasons,” he said.

McConnell also noted that the case should be resolved as soon as possible to help provide food to hungry people or “needless suffering will occur.”

‘A state problem’

Tyler Becker, who argued on behalf of the USDA, said the department had done its part by making available to states a table showing how they should allocate partial November benefits for households of differing circumstances.

SNAP is a complex program, requiring coordination between the federal government and all 50 states, each of which has a different system for distributing benefits.

“The government did make the payments, is making the payments to the states,” he said. “That’s all the government does in the SNAP program.”

He added that the government had shown earlier in the case some of the administrative difficulties of paying partial benefits.

In a separate case in Massachusetts federal court, some states said they could process the benefits immediately, while others cannot.

“This is a state problem,” he said.

But McConnell cut him off shortly after, saying the federal government was responsible for ensuring people got their SNAP benefits.

“The problem that the government identified needed to be resolved one way or the other by Wednesday,” he said. “And if it wasn’t resolved by Wednesday, then you had to make the full payments, because that’s the only way we could get money to people immediately and alleviate the irreparable harm, whether you could or couldn’t do anything about that.”

In a Sept. 30 contingency plan about how to proceed during a government shutdown, the USDA itself said it would pay for continuing benefits through the contingency fund, which at the time held $6 billion. The administration later reversed that plan and said it could not tap the contingency fund.

In the Massachusetts case, which was brought by 25 Democratic states and the District of Columbia, the states argued Thursday that confusion stemming from a miscalculation the USDA made in determining November partial benefits was a reason to force the administration to pay for a full month.

USDA corrects miscalculation

The hearing followed a late Wednesday night filing from the USDA correcting an error it made in calculating the amounts beneficiaries would receive under its plan for partial payments. 

The department said it will reduce the largest monthly food assistance payments by about 35% in November, down from a 50% cut the department initially estimated.

USDA miscalculated how to adjust benefit payments for SNAP to account for a lack of full funding during the government shutdown, a department official said in a filing to the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island. 

The formula the government initially used and sent to states Tuesday would have resulted in about a 50% cut to the maximum monthly benefits, and left some households without benefits. 

SNAP pays benefits on a sliding scale depending on the size of a household, the household’s income and other expenses such as housing. By cutting the maximum benefit by one-half, the department would have spent about $3 billion from a SNAP contingency fund instead of the full $4.65 billion in the fund, which is what the court ordered it to spend.

The mixup created confusion for state administrators, the states in the Massachusetts litigation said.

“The fact they have been asked to suddenly shift on a dime yet again as a result of these entirely new tables, causing further chaos and delay, underscores that USDA’s approach here is untenable and unlawful,” the states wrote in a Thursday brief.

The error was first reported to McConnell by the coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the government to pay SNAP benefits this month. 

Think tank discovers discrepancy 

An analysis submitted by Sharon Parrott, a former White House budget officer who now leads the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, showed that the table the department submitted to the court and sent to states on Tuesday would fall short of the court’s order to spend the entire contingency fund.

The groups said the department’s error was another reason the court should compel the government to transfer funds to pay out full benefits for November.

“Defendants’ approach means that only around $3 billion—out of the $4.65 billion Defendants have said is available—will be spent on SNAP benefits in November, leaving more than $1.5 billion in contingency funds unspent,” they wrote in a Wednesday brief. “Defendants opted for partial (and delayed) SNAP payments, but even then, did not manage to do that correctly.”

The department said in its filing later Wednesday that it independently discovered its miscalculation and worked to fix it before Parrott’s declaration hit the court docket.

“Defendants realized this error and worked to issue new guidance and tables as soon as it was discovered, not in response to Plaintiffs’ notice filed earlier this evening,” USDA’s brief said.

The U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats urged Republican leaders Wednesday to pass a bill to extend critical food assistance for the most vulnerable Americans during the ongoing government shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats would support a standalone bill introduced by GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. And New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján attempted to pass by unanimous consent his bill to fund two major nutrition assistance programs.

“Let’s end this hunger crisis before it begins,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. 

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune objected to Luján’s proposal, and the government shutdown entered its fifth week with lawmakers of both parties showing no signs of the agreement needed to reopen the government in time to avoid putting 42 million people at risk of losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits Saturday.

Beneficiaries of SNAP, which covers low-income people, children and those with disabilities, are supposed to receive payments Nov. 1. But the shutdown and the Trump administration’s contention it cannot release contingency funding to cover the cost of November benefits mean many will go without.

Democrats held several press conferences Wednesday, the shutdown’s 29th day, raising concerns about the loss of SNAP benefits and slamming the U.S. Department of Agriculture for not tapping into its multi-year contingency fund to approve food assistance for November. 

The move has caused states to scramble to provide aid, strained local food banks and has resulted in a lawsuit from dozens of state officials this week to force the agency to release funds for SNAP.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged Thune, a South Dakota Republican, to bring Hawley’s bill to the Senate for a floor vote. The bill would fund SNAP amid the funding lapse. 

Thune declines to bring standalone bills

But Thune has rejected considering bills that fund single programs during the shutdown. He has instead pushed for Democrats to approve a House-passed GOP measure to temporarily reopen the government.

“We’re not going to pick winners and losers,” he said after objecting to Lujan’s bill.”It’s time to fund everybody who’s experiencing the pain from this shutdown.”

Thune said on the Senate floor that he will only call another vote on the House-passed GOP stopgap measure if Senate Democrats “tell me they have enough votes to fund the government.”

The Senate this week, for the 13th time, failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to move forward on a measure to extend government funding through Nov. 21. 

Democrats have voted against the short-term funding bill in an effort to spark negotiations on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Republicans have said those talks can begin when the government is funded. 

Open enrollment for the ACA marketplace starts Nov. 1 in most states. Democrats have predicted that when people start getting their quotes for health insurance and seeing significantly higher prices for out-of-pocket premiums, it will force Republicans to negotiate on tax credits. 

“We are days away from a health care crisis,” Schumer said.  

Shutdown to become ‘very real’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a morning press conference the government shutdown “gets very real” Saturday when the federal government will no longer pay out SNAP benefits. 

“You’re talking about tens of millions of Americans at risk of going hungry, if the Senate Democrats continue this gambit,” Johnson said. 

The Louisiana Republican, who voted against the stopgap spending bill that ended the 2018-2019 shutdown, repeatedly urged rank-and-file Democratic senators to “do the right thing.”

“I think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are irredeemable at this point,” Johnson said, referring to the top Democrats in both chambers. “I’ve given up on the leadership. So we’re trying to appeal to a handful of moderates or centrists who care more about the American people and will put the people’s interest over their own and do the right thing in the Senate.”

Johnson also disparaged a lawsuit filed by Democratic attorneys general that asked a federal judge to require funding for SNAP be paid out during the government shutdown. 

“Instead of taking a simple vote to fund the government, which Senate Democrats have now had more than a dozen opportunities to do, Democrat attorneys general are suing the federal government to try to compel SNAP benefits to flow, despite the government being closed and despite the fact that there is no money to do that,” Johnson said.

Freeze on SNAP contingency fund questioned

Luján held up a printed out copy of USDA’s Sept. 30 shutdown contingency plan during an early afternoon press conference, saying the agency’s refusal to tap into its emergency funds for SNAP recipients was nonsensical.

He slammed the agency for removing its own contingency plan from its website, which verifies that in case of a funding lapse, USDA would use its roughly $6 billion in contingency funds to cover SNAP benefits during a government shutdown.

“This is the bulls–t, taking these plans down to try to lie to the American people and justify why it’s okay for people to go hungry,” Luján said. 

Luján’s bill that he tried to get approval through unanimous consent, would have funded SNAP during a government shutdown as well as the USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, said that Democrats are ready to support Lujan’s bill or Hawley’s bill. She added that she and several other Democrats plan to co-sponsor Hawley’s bill. So far, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont is the only Democrat to co-sponsor the bill.

The 10 Senate Republicans who have co-sponsored Hawley’s bill include Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted of Ohio, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and John Cornyn of Texas. 

Colorado Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse argued during a midday press conference that Trump administration officials have “made a conscious and deliberate choice to suspend SNAP benefits.”

“It is outrageous that the Trump administration can come up with $40 billion to bail out Argentina and refuses to spend the money that Congress has appropriated to feed hungry families in America,” Neguse said. 

House Agriculture Committee ranking member Angie Craig, D-Minn., said the law regarding SNAP’s contingency fund “is clear and unambiguous” and that Trump’s “actions display a pattern of callous disregard for America’s hungry seniors, children and veterans.”

Craig said the USDA should use the contingency fund to pay most of the November benefits. The department should then use some of the $23 billion in another account referred to as Section 32 to cover the rest of the cost, Craig said. 

Craig also pushed back against criticisms of SNAP, saying it provides about ​​$6.20 a day for food.

“This does not come close to covering even one trip to the grocery store a month for most American families, especially as this administration has started a trade war that is driving up costs for everyone in our country,” Craig said. “So this is exactly the point.”

Shutdown projected to hurt economy

Because of the ramifications for federal programs like SNAP and delayed paychecks for federal workers, the ongoing shutdown is expected to have a negative impact on the economy, according to an analysis the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday.

Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in an eight-page letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, that the funding lapse “will delay federal spending and have a negative effect on the economy that will mostly, but not entirely, reverse once the shutdown ends.”

The federal government spent $33 billion less than it would have during the first four weeks of the shutdown. The funding lapse lasting for six weeks would result in a $54 billion drop in outlays and if it goes on for eight weeks, it would lead the federal government to put $74 billion less into the economy. 

“Those amounts include delayed spending for employee compensation, goods and services, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” Swagel wrote. “CBO expects that when appropriations resume, the spending that did not occur during the shutdown will be made up.”

Swagel cautioned that the projections “are subject to considerable uncertainty. 

“The effects of the shutdown will depend on decisions made by the Administration throughout the shutdown, including decisions about which executive branch activities continue and which are halted.”

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin have announced food drives and are blaming Republicans for looming cuts in federal food assistance. (Getty Images)

With the expected loss of federal food assistance funding starting Saturday, Democratic state lawmakers are mounting a series of food drives as part of their campaign to draw attention to their argument that Republicans are to blame.

Wisconsin’s FoodShare program will stop receiving its monthly payments from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, starting Nov. 1.

The Trump administration has blocked further SNAP funding as a result of the federal shutdown that began Oct. 1, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture has $6 billion in reserves. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general and governors, including in Wisconsin, has sued the administration over the refusal to tap the reserve fund.  

In Milwaukee County, Sen. Chris Larson and state Rep. Christine Sinicki, both Milwaukee Democrats, scheduled a news conference and food drive for Thursday morning at a food pantry in Cudahy, a suburb just south of the city.

Across the state, Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) are holding a news conference and food drive Thursday morning in Eau Claire in conjunction with local nonprofits there.

Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) are holding a press conference and food drive on Thursday afternoon at a La Crosse food bank, joined by local advocates. 

The aim is “to highlight the disastrous effects of the shutdown on Wisconsinites and discuss how our community can step up to support the most vulnerable among us in their time of need,” Billings’ office stated in announcing the event.

Johnson has also scheduled an event  and food drive Friday with Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) at a Viroqua food pantry with Vernon County advocates.

In Appleton, the Democratic Party of Outagamie County and state Senate hopeful Emily Tseffos have organized a two-week food drive that began Monday, Oct. 27 and will run through Nov. 8. That drive will supply pantries across the Fox Valley, according to the group.

“The fact that the government remains shut down while people right here are about to go hungry didn’t sit right with me,” Tseffos said in a statement. “So a group of friends and I got together to see what we could do.”

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