The 2025 Federal Shutdown and Its Implications for Food Security in the United States of America
By Chiara Cerbone
1. Introduction
In October 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that, as of 1 November, it would suspend the benefits administered under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, in light of the federal government shutdown that commenced on 30 September 2025 and continued until 12 November 2025.
A shutdown occurs whenever the U.S. Congress fails to approve, by 1 October, either the annual appropriations bills or a continuing resolution — the latter being an instrument that ensures the temporary funding of specific federal Departments, Agencies, and Programs, thereby allowing their operations to continue.
The federal shutdown finds its legal basis in the Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. § 1341 et seq.), which prohibits federal Agencies from obligating or expending funds in the absence of specific congressional authorization (so-called appropriation). When such authorization is lacking, administrative activities must be suspended, with the exception of those classified as “essential” in the shutdown plans prepared by each Agency under the coordination of the Office of Management and Budget, an entity within the Executive Office of the U.S. President.
Although SNAP falls within mandatory spending — i.e., expenditures permanently authorized by the Food and Nutrition Act (Sections 4 and 18) and therefore not subject to annual appropriations — it nonetheless requires yearly authorizations for certain operational and administrative items. As a result, a shutdown may affect the timely disbursement of the corresponding benefits.
The situation that thus emerged gave rise to several lawsuits brought by individual States and citizens’ organizations, two of which resulted in judicial rulings.
The following brief notes aim to examine the decisions issued by Judge McConnel Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island and by District Judge Talwani of the District of Massachusetts. Although the shutdown has now ended, it remains useful to reconstruct these two proceedings, which serve as litmus tests for the protection of social rights within the U.S. legal order, especially in moments of institutional strain and fiscal uncertainty.
2. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
SNAP is the largest anti-hunger program implemented by the United States and is essential to mitigating the conditions of food insecurity that, according to The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2024 Report, affect approximately 41.7 million Americans. To that end, its annual appropriation amounts to 98.8 billion dollars (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Jones, Todd & Toossi, 2025).
To fully grasp its nature and scope, it is necessary to briefly retrace its historical origins. The program traces its roots to the food-coupon initiatives of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a period in which widespread unemployment and poverty coexisted with agricultural overproduction. In order to address both issues simultaneously, the federal government adopted a “win-win” solution — purchase coupons — thereby managing to support roughly four million indigent individuals.
A first evolution of this system occurred in 1939, when, following protests by food retailers and wholesalers, who claimed the measure disproportionately benefited farmers, the program was extended to operators in the broader distribution sector.
As to its operation, low-income individuals were given a set of “orange stamps,” which they could exchange for certain categories of food products; in return, they received “blue stamps” (valued at 50 cents for every dollar spent on orange stamps), which could be used to purchase surplus commodities.
With the advent of World War II and the reduction of food surpluses, the program was terminated in 1943.
After the war, several attempts were made to reintroduce measures aimed at eradicating food poverty. These efforts led first to the experimentation, under President J. F. Kennedy, of pilot programs in several States, and later culminated in the enactment of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, legislation strongly supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson in order to allow low-income families “to receive a greater share of the Nation’s food abundance” (Nestle, 2019).
Subsequent reforms, implemented from 1973 through 2018, continuously reshaped SNAP: expanding the categories of eligible food products; introducing the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system — which enables beneficiaries to pay with an EBT card linked to an account funded monthly by USDA with SNAP benefits; imposing more restrictive eligibility criteria and sanctions under the Welfare Reform Act of 1996; and ultimately strengthening verification tools through the Farm Bills of 2008 and 2014.
In its current and consolidated form, SNAP is governed by Title IV of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill), which not only regulates essential aspects such as benefit issuance and acceptance procedures and anti-fraud measures — including verification protocols, enhanced oversight of retailers, and expanded interstate data-matching — but also strengthens employment and training programs (such as the SNAP Employment and Training Program) and finances studies, pilot projects, and interventions aimed at improving the program’s administrative efficiency and overall effectiveness.
3. The Intervention of the District Courts in Defense of SNAP
As noted above, several complaints were filed before various U.S. District Courts in response to the suspension of SNAP benefits, all seeking emergency relief compelling the federal government — namely the USDA — to continue issuing SNAP payments during the shutdown. Among these, two proceedings acquired particular significance, both for the speed with which they were resolved and for the scope of the decisions rendered: the action brought in the District of Rhode Island and the one initiated in the District of Massachusetts.
The complaint filed before the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by the Rhode Island State Council of Churches et al. — including labor unions (such as SEIU), small businesses (including Black Sheep Market and Main Street Alliance), nonprofit organizations (such as Amos House, Federal Hill House, and United Way of Rhode Island), and several municipalities (including Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket in Rhode Island, as well as Baltimore, Columbus, and New Haven) — against Brooke Rollins, in her capacity as Secretary of the USDA, et al., sought a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). A TRO is an emergency, short-term measure issued where delay in judicial intervention would expose the plaintiff to immediate and irreparable harm and is designed to preserve the status quo pending adjudication of a subsequent preliminary injunction. In the present case, the requested order sought to compel the issuance of SNAP benefits during the shutdown.
According to the plaintiffs, the suspension of SNAP payments would cause immediate and irreparable harm to approximately 42 million American beneficiaries. This harm, they argued, could have been avoided through the use of the 6 billion dollars in contingency funds or the more than 23 billion dollars available under Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 — funds expressly intended to support such benefit programs in extraordinary circumstances.
The plaintiffs further asserted that the USDA had a nondiscretionary duty to distribute benefits to all eligible households, SNAP being an entitlement program: a program in which those who satisfy statutory eligibility criteria are legally entitled to benefits, and overall expenditures automatically adjust to the number of beneficiaries rather than being limited by predetermined spending caps.
Finally, plaintiffs maintained that the suspension would not only endanger indigent Americans but also force cities and nonprofit organizations to divert personnel and resources away from other essential services in order to confront the impending food-security emergency.
In response to these claims, on 1 November 2025 Judge John J. McConnell Jr. issued a Temporary Restraining Order, holding that plaintiffs had demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits and that the harm they faced was indeed grave and irreparable.
The District Judge therefore ordered the USDA to proceed with the payment of SNAP benefits. Although the Court did not mandate reliance on the funds available under Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, it encouraged the Government to exercise its discretion to use them in order to fully fund November SNAP payments by Monday, 3 November 2025; alternatively, the TRO required at least a partial payment, funded solely through the contingency reserve, by Wednesday, 5 November 2025.
The federal government responded promptly: on Monday, 3 November, it filed a Defendants' Report re compliance with the Court's temporary Restraining Order, informing the Court that it had decided not to rely on Section 32 funds or other extraordinary resources to fully finance SNAP. Instead, the Government opted to use the entire amount available in the program’s contingency fund. The USDA also stated that it had prepared and distributed to the States the issuance schedule necessary to calculate the benefits owed to each eligible household, thereby enabling timely disbursement.
The escalation continued on Thursday, 6 November, when Judge McConnell issued an oral order directing the Trump Administration to fully fund SNAP by the following day, Friday, 7 November.
The Administration promptly filed an appeal against Judge McConnell’s ruling, but USDA nevertheless issued a memorandum on 7 November committing to full funding of SNAP, allowing several States — including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Hawaii — to immediately release full benefits.
Despite this memorandum, the Trump Administration sought an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the payment order constituted “a mockery of the separation of powers" and that no mechanism existed for the federal government to recoup funds already disbursed. Consequently, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an administrative stay on 7 November 2025, temporarily halting full payments pending the First Circuit’s decision on the stay request filed in the appeal. Following issuance of the stay, on 8 November the USDA instructed those States that had issued (or were planning to issue) full payments to immediately recover the funds from beneficiaries, threatening sanctions such as withholding the federal share of State administrative costs. Several governors responded with threats of litigation or explicit refusals to comply. The Supreme Court later extended the stay on 11 November, keeping it in force until 11:59 p.m. on 13 November.
The end of the federal shutdown on 12 November 2025 effectively brought the controversy to a close: Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced in a CNN interview the full reinstatement of SNAP benefits, thereby rendering the pending federal litigation moot.
In parallel, the second case under examination is Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al. v. United States Department of Agriculture et al. (Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-13165-IT), decided by District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts.
In a preliminary Memorandum and Order, the Court found merit in the plaintiffs’ allegation that the suspension of SNAP benefits was unlawful. Judge Talwani held that the USDA’s interpretation — namely, that SNAP could not be funded absent new appropriations — was legally erroneous. To the contrary, the USDA is statutorily required to use the contingency fund whenever necessary to ensure the continuity of the program.
The Court further observed that, in addition to the contingency fund, the USDA may — in its discretion — rely on Section 32 funds of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 to cover any remaining shortfalls in SNAP financing.
For these reasons, while reserving judgment on the merits — particularly with regard to the irreparable harm suffered by American citizens — the Court ordered the defendants to inform the Court by 3 November 2025 whether they intended to proceed with the issuance of SNAP benefits and by what funding method (contingency fund alone or contingency fund supplemented by additional resources).
Subsequently, in light of the information received, Judge Talwani issued a Temporary Restraining Order on 10 November, aligning her decision with that of Judge McConnell, and ordered the Trump Administration to secure funding for November food-stamp payments.
Following the USDA’s 7 November memorandum committing to full funding, Massachusetts attempted to issue SNAP benefits to its residents. However, timing-related complications allowed payments to reach only part of the intended beneficiaries. Matters further deteriorated when, on the same day, the Supreme Court issued its administrative stay and the USDA sought to claw back funds already distributed by the State — prompting Governor Maura Healey to threaten additional legal action against the Trump Administration.
As in the parallel litigation, the conclusion of the federal shutdown on 12 November 2025 and the full reinstatement of SNAP benefits rendered the case Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al. v. United States Department of Agriculture et al. moot.
4. Some Concluding Remarks
The decisions examined above appear to highlight the growing importance of policies and interventions aimed at combating food insecurity — understood in the broader framework of food security — as a structural component of the federal welfare architecture, as well as the significance of judicial oversight in the implementation of entitlement programs during periods of budgetary crisis.
These considerations align with a principle traditionally recognized within U.S. constitutionalism: namely, the Executive’s lack of authority to curtail social rights statutorily granted to individuals. This principle, deeply rooted in American jurisprudence, developed beginning with Goldberg v. Kelly (397 U.S. 254, 1970), in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that public benefits established by statute constitute statutory entitlements that, once conferred, become property interests protected under the Due Process Clause and are therefore insulated from unilateral Executive action, which cannot reduce or terminate them through discretionary measures lacking the requisite procedural safeguards (Michelman, 1979).
Similarly, a line of U.S. legal doctrine has argued that, despite the absence of explicit social and economic guarantees in the federal Constitution (Sunstein, 2005), social rights tend to operate as legal constraints capable of limiting executive power (Reich, 1964), even in circumstances of financial strain or institutional tension (Sunstein, 1993).
In light of these reflections, one may therefore argue that the shutdown — grounded in an institutional mechanism designed to maintain checks and balances — cannot, or rather should not, result in the suspension of programs that, like SNAP, fall within the domain of legally guaranteed entitlement rights. The disbursement of such benefits cannot be made contingent on the Executive’s political discretion without infringing the principle of substantive legality that undergirds the American welfare state.
A fortiori, during periods of institutional tension or fiscal contraction that jeopardize the effectiveness of welfare programs, the judiciary may — indeed, should — serve as the guarantor of a minimum threshold of protection for social rights.
Ultimately, safeguarding a right such as access to adequate food reveals the deep connection between constitutionalism, welfare, and food security — a sensitive and increasingly contested theme across various contexts and constitutional traditions.
Selected Bibliography
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service – Jones, J. W., Todd, E., & Toossi, S., The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report (Report No. EIB-291), July 2025.
- Nestle, M., The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): History, Politics, and Public Health Implications, American Journal of Public Health, 109(12), 2019, pp. 1631–1635.
- Sunstein, C. R., After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State, Harvard University Press, 1993.
- Sunstein, C. R., Why Does the American Constitution Lack Social and Economic Guarantees?, Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2005.
- Reich, A. C., The New Property, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 73, No. 5, April 1964, pp. 733–787.
- Michelman, F. I., Welfare Rights in a Constitutional Democracy, Washington University Law Quarterly, Vol. 1979, No. 3, pp. 659–693.