An EBT sign is displayed on the window of a grocery store on Oct. 30, 2025 in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The bill Trump signed Wednesday night reverses widespread federal layoffs and will allow furloughed employees to receive paychecks and backpay for the first time in roughly six weeks.
It will also relieve travel for millions of U.S. travelers whose flights were canceled or severely delayed as a result of the reduced workforce.
Crucially, it also restores full funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which lapsed on Nov. 1 for the first time in the program's 60-year history.
Roughly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, prompting more than two dozen states to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last month to keep the program fully funded.
Lower courts had ordered USDA to tap various contingency funds to fully fund SNAP benefits while the shutdown dragged on, prompting the Trump administration to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court for emergency intervention.
STATES SUE TRUMP ADMIN OVER BILLIONS IN LOOMING CUTS TO SNAP, FOOD STAMPS
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., has two bills that would both see lawmakers don't get paid during the shutdown, and deal with the constitutional requirement that they do. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The news is likely to be welcome relief for the tens of millions of low-income Americans that rely on SNAP benefits to purchase groceries and keep their families fed.
The Trump administration on Saturday threatened to slap economic penalties or fees on states that did not immediately undo efforts to distribute full SNAP benefits for the month of November, in compliance with a lower court order one day earlier. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture previously agreed to pay just 65% of SNAP benefits for the month using the agency's contingency fund.)
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The result was a patchwork system of benefits that varied from state to state, and as a result of various court orders — injecting fresh uncertainty and confusion over the benefits.
To contextualize the number of people that receive SNAP in his state, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told reporters that there "are more children in New Jersey on SNAP than consists of the entire population of our state's largest city."
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-asks-supreme-court-dismiss-snap-case