A federal judge in the United States has ruled that food aid benefits must be funded in full by Friday, local time.
Rhode Island's Judge John McConnell made a ruling earlier this week that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) must be reinstated either in partial payments by Wednesday or in full by Monday of next week.
However, with the Wednesday deadline passed and the administration is now skirting around funding the program in full and aiming for reduced benefits, McConnell has now ordered that it must be funded in full by Friday, saying that people would suffer “irreparable harm” without the assistance, and that it was driven by "political reasons".
Initially the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would not fund SNAP at all for November, but in the following days has walked that back, stating that it would reintroduce partial benefits but warned it could take weeks or even months of delays to balance the numbers on a state by state basis.
SNAP is food benefits program, open to Americans who are low or no income, with 42 million people currently dependent on the assistance.
This is the first time in U.S. history the program has been hatled, and comes as the federal government enters day 37 of shut down, the longest ever in history.
"The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur," McConnell said during a virtual court hearing.
"This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided.”
