The Trump administration is expected to dole out partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as they were not given at the beginning of the month due to Democrats refusing to reopen the government more than a dozen times.

Roughly 42 million food stamp recipients did not receive their benefit this month due to the ongoing government shutdown – the second longest in history, reaching 34 days on Monday.

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According to reports, the Trump administration plans to dole out partial benefits in the midst of the shutdown, telling a Rhode Island federal judge on Monday that it would “tap billions of dollars in contingency funds to pay 50% of the normal amount of SNAP benefits in November as the U.S. government shutdown persists,” NBC News reported:

The administration in a court filing told Judge Jack McConnell that it had declined the option he suggested to make full November payments for SNAP benefits by using at least $4 billion from the Child Nutrition Program, as well as from other unspecified funds.

Instead, the administration will use all of the $4.65 billion remaining from a contingency fund for SNAP appropriated by Congress for “November benefits that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.”

More specifically, the Trump administration said it “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.”

As such, partial benefits will start going out, although the timing varies state by state.

The Trump administration also faced the option of using Child Nutrition Program funds to allocate the benefits, but USDA said the funds should remain available to “protect full operation of Child Nutrition Programs throughout the fiscal year, instead of being used for SNAP benefits.”

“Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” Patrick Penn, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary of the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, said, according to NBC News.

He contended that using funds from the Child Nutrition program would leave an “unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations.”

A warning on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website – which has appeared for several days – warns that Senate Democrats have voted more than a dozen times to keep the government shutdown and thereby not fund the food stamp program.

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“At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance,” the warning adds.

Top Democrats have suggested that they are unbothered by the pain they are inflicting on the American people in their shutdown, as Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the number two ranking House Democrat, recently admitted that this is all about political leverage for Democrats.

“Shutdowns are terrible, and of course there will be families that are going to suffer,” she told Fox News. “We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), meanwhile, has continued to remind the American people that it is Democrats – not Republicans – who are inflicting harm on the American people for the sake of their own political survival.

“The Schumer shutdown was never about health care,” Johnson said on Monday. “That’s a distraction. It’s red herring, as we say in debate club, ok? This is about fear. …  Everybody in the country is watching the elections that will happen tomorrow. … The attention is focused primarily on New York City.”

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani waves to the crowd during a rally on Sunday, October 26, 2025, in New York. (Heather Khalifa/AP)

Johnson said Democrats fear that socialist Zohran Mamdani will be elected as mayor and that their political future will be compromised if they do not bow to their radical left sect.

“Schumer and Jeffries and their colleagues fear political retribution from the far-left activists in their party more than they fear the consequences of keeping the government closed for weeks on end,” he said.

“They fear that personally for their own political future, and they care more about that than they care about SNAP benefits flowing to hungry families, about air traffic controllers being paid so they can keep the skies safe, border patrol, troops, and all the rest. It pales in comparison,” the Speaker said. “It is extremism on the left that is the direct cause of American suffering right now.”