Shoppers inside a grocery store in New York on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. Kena Betancur/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The US Department of Agriculture ordered states to stop issuing full food stamp benefits for November and to “immediately undo” any issuance of the full allotments, after a Supreme Court justice on Friday paused a lower court order requiring the agency to pay Americans their full assistance.

In the Saturday directive , obtained by CNN, the USDA told states to instead proceed with issuing partial benefits that will provide recipients with 65% of their November allotments, as ordered by the same lower court judge earlier in the week.

“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, a top USDA official, wrote in the memo.

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