🔗 Share this article

The US Supreme Court has issued an urgent ruling that temporarily allows the federal government to withhold billions of dollars for food benefits relied on by millions of low-income Americans.

Administration officials appealed to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called food aid, should be distributed completely to beneficiaries by Friday.

This assistance has been caught in uncertainty by the continuing budget impasse, with the Trump administration arguing it could only pay for part of it.

The court's decision means $4bn can be temporarily withheld pending further legal hearings.

Programme Impact

This nutrition aid is issued by tens of millions of U.S. citizens - around one in eight - and costs almost £6.9bn a month.

On Thursday, a federal magistrate, the presiding judge, accused the Trump administration of blocking nutrition funds "due to political motives" and said that without the assistance "16 million children are immediately at risk of facing hunger".

He ordered the administration to fund the assistance completely.

Legal Background

The Thursday ruling came after that ordered the administration to dip into contingency funds to at least partly pay for the assistance for November.

The legal saga was triggered after the US Department of Agriculture, which manages the food stamp program, announced benefits would be stopped in the fall due to the lack of funding over the shutdown.

Prior to the high court's action, the Agriculture Department said it was working to comply with the multiple rulings and was making efforts to doll out the complete amount.

Supreme Court Action

High Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the stay late Friday, known as an temporary halt, effectively freezing the previous decision for 48 hours while government lawyer's seek to overturn it.

The row over food aid funding has become among the most contentious of what is now the longest government shutdown in US history.

Broader Impact

Federal employees have been without pay for more than a month and flight operations has been thrown into chaos as Democratic and Republican lawmakers cannot reach a deal to fund the government.

Several states have used their own financial reserves to keep Snap payments flowing, which are worth around $6 to users via electronic benefit cards which can be redeemed in food markets.

However, certain states have said they are unable to replace the funding which has been lost from the U.S. treasury.