Low-income people sue Trump officials to fund food benefits

Robert Burnson, Bloomberg News on Nov 5, 2025

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The Trump administration faces a new challenge in the battle over food assistance benefits amid a federal funding lapse — a lawsuit filed by recipients who say they’re in danger of going hungry.

The proposed class-action suit comes as the administration has sent conflicting signals about whether it will comply with court orders to continue funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that serves 42 million low-income people.

President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Tuesday that SNAP benefits would not go out until Democrats in Congress agreed to end the government shutdown. But later in the day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration would restore partial benefits, though “it’s going to take some time.”

Federal law requires the administration to provide the benefits in full and on time “whether or not Congress appropriates funds through an annual appropriations act or continuing resolution,” according to the complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California.

“Americans should not go hungry because Congress cannot agree on a federal budget when the Food and Nutrition Act guarantees the regular distribution of SNAP benefits,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint.

Two federal courts have already ordered the administration to restore the SNAP benefits, which were cut off Saturday, leaving many SNAP recipients without a way to buy food.

Administration officials told the two courts that they would provide recipients about half of their normal amount for November.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, whose department administers SNAP, was named as a defendant in the suit. A spokesperson for her office cited a social media post by Rollins saying the president is “doing everything he can to help our most vulnerable mothers and babies while Radical Left Democrats continue to obstruct.”

The class action was filed by public interest law firms, the Western Center on Law & Poverty in Los Angeles and the Impact Fund based in Berkeley, California.

The case is Perrone v. Rollins, 25-cv-09508, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).