By Teon Hayes
Founded in 2018 by Black Mamas Matter Alliance, this year’s Black Maternal Health Week invites us to imagine what it truly means for Black mothers to thrive in lives rooted in justice and joy.
Historically, systems and policies affecting Black women have too often been shaped without their voices and ideas from inception through implementation. The danger in this approach is clear: solutions that fail to meet the needs of those they claim to help because those solutions flatten lived experiences into statistics, headlines, or policy debates and ultimately miss the depth, nuance, and everyday realities that should shape those decisions. When Black mothers are not centered, their full humanity is reduced to simplified, incomplete, and inaccurate representations.
What would it look like to build a world where Black mothers are not only heard, but deeply listened to and respected? A world where systems and policies are built with their voices at the center?
My candid conversations with eight of the Black mothers in my life provide some of those answers. Their reflections and raw responses consider what joy feels like, what justice means, and what it would take to truly thrive. As one mother said:
“To feel truly safe, supported, and to experience justice would require something like a cosmic heart transplant in the soul of America. Even if I were given a magic wand and the power to enact sweeping legislative and societal change, it would still not be enough. Laws matter, but the deeper transformation must happen in the hearts and minds of people. So many things would need to change.”
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
Washington, D.C., April 6, 2026–The Trump Administration’s budget proposal predictably cuts support for children, families, and workers, at a time when families are already struggling to make ends meet. It’s the same tired story from this administration, asserting that within the proposed $8 trillion budget, our country must cut funding for the programs that help families get by so they can increase defense funding and underwrite their immigration enforcement that rips families and communities apart.
CLASP documented the many ways the Trump Administration went out of its way to hurt families and communities in 2025, and this budget is another step in that direction. It would increase the number of people in poverty even further, on top of all of the other policies the administration has signed into law, like denying millions of people their health coverage and food assistance through H.R.1.
The Trump Administration has proposed even more drastic cuts to vital programs that workers rely on for workforce development and access to jobs that pay living wages. On top of that, rising inflation and increased strain on state budgets from H.R. 1 mean that cuts and level funding to programs like Head Start, SNAP, and public health programs, which support mental and maternal and child health, along with grants that support child care and housing would further reduce access to essential services. All of this contributes to the administration’s attacks on affordability and the social safety net.
We know what we need to invest in to support families – health care, food assistance, housing, child care, worker development programs, education. But instead, this budget slashes funding to programs that support families while continuing to inflate the budget of immigration enforcement agents who are separating families and traumatizing communities.
The President’s budget is unacceptable. Congress should reject it and work to pass a budget that actually reflects the needs of our communities.
By Elyse Shaw and Lorena Roque
As Women’s History Month comes to a close, we should reflect on how far women’s rights have come over the years. However, that’s difficult to do when the Trump Administration has spent the past year engineering a wholesale attack on women’s rights. This onslaught has included attacks on the federal workforce, gutting the Department of Education and the proposed loan caps and loan forgiveness changes, clawing back EEOC guidance on harassment and discrimination at work, canceling grants that support women and LGBTQ+ individuals, and attacks on DEIA and trans people. Taken together, this has allowed the conservative movement to use its authoritarian playbook to strip women of their rights, economic security, and health and well-being. These are not one-off issue areas or separate attacks: this is a coordinated campaign to exert power and control over every aspect of women’s lives.
Instead of promoting policies that support all working women, such as paid family and medical leave, affordable child care, and equal pay, a new report from the Heritage Foundation outlines what type of women they actually want to support: cisgender straight white women who stay home to raise kids while their husbands work. Writers of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation have gone into detail about their pronatalist policy agenda for women in their latest report, Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years. The Trump Administration has taken this playbook as its own and already begun to dismantle policies, setting women back half a century. All of these policy decisions are intentional and lead to the Trump Administration’s goal: restricting women’s autonomy and freedom in the United States.
Since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973, the conservative movement has been working to strip reproductive rights from women across the U.S. The fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 through the Dobbs decision signified an opportunity for the conservative movement to further erode access to basic reproductive health care and control women’s lives. Since Dobbs, women have been denied basic reproductive health care, with the delay or denial of care even leading to death. Some Southern states have sought to criminalize and violate women in regards to their reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. For example, a brain-dead woman in Georgia was forced to stay on life support against her family’s wishes, in an attempt to maintain her nine week pregnancy to viability and was forced to give “birth” while coma-induced. In another case, a Texas woman who suffered a miscarriage was charged with “abuse of a corpse” and jailed for five months. Just weeks ago, a sexual assault survivor in Tennessee, who was hours into pre-surgery preparation for sterilization, was denied that procedure at the last minute when hospital staff decided they had a “duty to protect her sacred fertility.”
These types of cases are part of a larger playbook for the right-wing movement on who should be given government support. In the new playbook, “Saving American Families,” the Heritage Foundation authors acknowledge the high cost of child care, but instead of investing in universal child care or funding Head Start, they instead focus on incentivizing women to leave the workforce and stay home to raise children. They recommend limiting child care credits, programs, and tax benefits to families with one working parent and one stay-at-home parent. The paper details many other policies aimed at increasing the U.S. birthrate by restricting women’s autonomy – such as limiting public benefits to heterosexual married couples and banning no-fault divorce – while punishing single women and mothers. The report recommends creating stricter work reporting requirements for single mothers who access basic needs programs, rolling back access to higher education, eliminating all government-run registered apprenticeship programs, and eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit. All of this would disproportionately impact single mothers, who are more likely to be women of color and paid low wages, further marginalizing them.
Postsecondary education is a key pathway to economic security for women, given that women with a bachelor’s degree earn, on average, only slightly more than men with a high school diploma. At the same time, women rely on professional and post-baccalaureate programs for career advancement and economic mobility. In 2024, the Heritage Foundation made it clear that they believe education, especially higher education, is to blame for the nation’s declining birth rates. Their solution: restrict access to education for women. As a result, the Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle the Department of Education by restructuring departments and reassigning higher education grant programs to other federal agencies. In addition, the administration is threatening funding for colleges that maintain their commitment to DEI and proposing to overhaul student loans and loan forgiveness programs. These combined actions will make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for women to attend undergraduate or graduate degree programs.
On the first day of his second term, Trump launched an attack on DEIA and transgender and gender-nonbinary people, leading to the shuttering of federal offices and agencies, ending of programs and initiatives, and discontinuing of grant activities or entire grant programs that supported women. Across the federal government, even mentioning the term “women” was enough to get a project, program, or grant cancelled – from workforce development grants to grants for research into women’s health. And critical initiatives to advance women continue to feel these impacts. According to recent research, women scientists were disproportionately impacted by the NIH grant cancellations, as they were leading almost 60 percent of de-funded projects. These attacks will have long-lasting impacts on women’s health, well-being, and economic security.
These policy decisions by the Trump Administration are driving women out of the workforce. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 455,000 women left the labor market from January to August 2025. For the rest of 2025, only 184,000 women re-entered the workforce compared to 572,000 men during the same time period. A national survey revealed that 42 percent of women who left the workforce last year did so due to caregiving responsibilities, 37 percent left due to inadequate workplace flexibility, and 18 percent left because of insufficient wages to meet the high cost of child care. Strikingly, Black women have been the hardest hit by the labor market in the past year. By December 2025, Black women’s unemployment rate hit 7.3 percent, double that of white women and the highest it has been since the Covid-19 pandemic. The Trump Administration’s shrinking of the federal government has had the biggest impact on Black women’s unemployment rate. That’s because Black women represent 6 percent of the labor force and 12 percent of the federal labor force. With almost 330,000 federal jobs cut in 2025, Black women represent 33 percent of those job cuts. The Trump Administration will only amplify these numbers by eliminating minimum wage and overtime protections for millions of home health care and domestic workers.
At the same time, women can’t achieve economic security without access to comprehensive health care. Abortion bans reduce women’s earnings and labor force participation, especially among Black and Latina women. In fact, when including in-state restrictive abortion policies, such as mandatory waiting times and unnecessary restrictions for providers, the U.S. economy has lost over $133 billion annually since Roe v. Wade was overturned. The economic cost of restrictive reproductive health care transcends abortion access because it also includes maternal mortality, the absence of cancer screenings and treatment, and the lack of access to pre/post-natal and doula care. Just to offer two examples: 81 percent of Black maternal deaths in Michigan are preventable and 40 percent of counties in Colorado are considered maternal health care deserts, meaning they lack a hospital, birth center, or obstetric care providers.
With Project 2025 as the playbook of the current Trump Administration, the newest Heritage Foundation’s report is alarming and should not be taken lightly. Additionally, with the rise of ‘tradwives’ and ‘princess treatment’ getting more traction on popular media platforms, the normalization of women’s subjugation hides what these conservative policies actually promote: the dangerous and violent reality of the government controlling women’s lives and bodies.
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) submitted this comment in response to the U.S. Department of Education’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee’s ongoing rulemaking to implement student financial aid provisions under Public Law 119–21 and the Office of Postsecondary Education’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) issued on January 30, 2026.
By Wendy Chun-Hoon
Last night’s State of the Union address was the latest reminder of how the Trump Administration is devastating the lives of immigrants, workers, LGBTQ+ communities, children, families, and people of color by pushing them further to the margins. Last month, CLASP highlighted just a sampling of the administration’s actions and executive orders that target immigration, child care and early education, nutrition, economic supports, health care and mental health, housing, higher education, and workers’ rights. Trump demonstrated in his address that he plans to expand that 2025 playbook of destruction.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric about a “roaring economy,” this past year has been defined by cruelty, chaos, and a deliberate dismantling of the public benefit programs that families count on. His administration has manufactured crises, cut essential programs, and turned government agencies meant to serve all of us into tools of punishment and fear.
Massive Cuts to Public Benefit Programs
We heard lots of claims last night about the economy, but the ugly truth is that Trump has gutted the very programs that keep families healthy and fed. Last July, he signed H.R. 1, a sweeping law that will slash $793 billion from Medicaid and nearly $200 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over 10 years—the largest cuts to those programs in our nation’s history. Trump bragged that he “lifted” 2.4 million Americans off of food assistance. To be clear, this translates to 2.4 million people being dropped from SNAP in an average month. And as a result of H.R.1, millions of families have already begun losing coverage or benefits. These cuts will result in:
And while he vowed in his address to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, H.R. 1 included policies that would harm these programs.
Even the so-called “Trump Accounts,” which create $1,000 savings accounts for babies, are a mirage. They’ll widen the racial wealth gap by allowing wealthy families to enjoy the full benefits of the accounts, putting them even farther ahead of children in families who can’t afford to make added contributions to the initial amount.
The Trump Administration Has and Will Continue to Manufacture Crises
We can’t forget the manufactured government shutdown of late 2025, which was the longest in U.S. history. It wasn’t just a political stunt; it was an act of sabotage that threatened millions of families with the prospect of losing the SNAP and WIC benefits that allow them to keep food on the table. In addition, thousands of families who depend on Head Start faced closed doors at their centers, with many more facing the real possibility of closures. Moreover, the shutdown forced health insurance premiums to skyrocket after Congress let Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. When Trump boasts about a “turnaround for the ages,” remember: his austerity didn’t come at the expense of billionaires. It came at the expense of families.
The president continues to follow the playbook of bringing up fraud, even claiming last night that eliminating fraud would “balance the budget overnight.” We should take factual instances of fraud seriously and address them. But he’s using these allegations as a pretext to cut basic needs programs, demonize immigrants and families with low incomes, and as another strategy for taking away the help people need to care for themselves and their families.
Cruel Attacks on Immigrants
The most vivid example of the cruelty of Trump’s second term has been his relentless assault on immigrant families. Within weeks of taking office last year, his administration had unleashed indiscriminate enforcement actions, turning routine traffic stops into family separations and deportation threats. He reinstated family detention, removed restrictions on conducting immigration enforcement at sensitive locations like schools and hospitals, reopened the notorious family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, and is attempting to deny birthright citizenship—a direct attack on the 14th Amendment.
In his State of the Union, Trump claimed these measures were about “restoring safety.” But the only thing they’ve restored is fear. Mixed-status families are living with constant anxiety. Teachers have watched children burst into tears when a classmate’s parent fails to show up at pickup. Immigrant communities are skipping doctor’s appointments and food pantries because they’re terrified that they will be detained. And to be clear, this indiscriminate and reckless immigration agenda is harming everyone. Administration officials are profiling and assaulting and detaining citizens and immigrants alike in communities across the country.
Disregard for Workers, People Pushed to the Margins
Trump has also undermined the rights of workers and students at every turn. His administration axed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs across federal agencies and rescinded rules that made workplaces safe. The Department of Education reclassified nursing and social-work degrees as “non-professional,” making students ineligible for essential loan programs.
Although the president loves to describe himself as “pro-worker,” the thousands of laid-off federal workers and the millions of people now at risk of losing child care and housing support would disagree. In fact, throughout the longest State of the Union address ever, Trump said nothing to address the struggles everyday families face, for instance failing to mention the child care affordability crisis even once.
Fortifying the State of OUR Union
The State of the Union is supposed to be a moment for the nation to take stock and see who we are as a society. But Trump’s address was a work of fiction. The real state of our union is fragile, strained, and deeply unequal, not because families failed to work hard enough, but because the government failed to protect them.
Advocates who care about people who have been marginalized, along with everyday Americans have a choice in the months ahead: to accept this cruelty as normal or to demand better. We can start by amplifying the truth. Share reports like CLASP’s timeline of harm. Support local food banks, mutual-aid networks, and immigrant-rights groups doing the work that Washington refuses to do. And call on legislators to support policies that help, not undermine, our communities.
We must all fight because the state of our union—the one rooted in compassion, justice, and community—depends on what we do next.
By Kaelin Rapport
Kaelin Rapport, Ph.D., a policy analyst on CLASP’s Racial Equity team, discusses the organization’s new youth mobile crisis program guidelines in this February 2026 AMSA Talks interview.
By Christian Collins, Teon Hayes, Kaelin Rapport
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, and this February brings the 10oth anniversary of Black History Month. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which founded Black History Month, calls us to celebrate Black history across the African Diaspora and how that history is tied to Black people’s current material conditions. Those conditions have become more precarious as the Trump Administration enacts its agenda to”Make American Great Again.”
Considering these two anniversaries, we should ask ourselves what great means, and great for whom? In the first year of Trump’s second term, his administration has enacted explicitly discriminatory policies reversing the progress made by civil rights leaders and activists in the struggle for equity. These actions disproportionately harm Black communities and destroy measures implemented to right historical wrongs.
Acknowledging the past through reparations is a necessary step toward building a future where the white supremacy undergirding the MAGA movement is stamped out. While there has been abundant research on racial inequality, more direct examination on how best to address harm and evaluate the impact of existing reparative policies and programs is needed. We can learn from those that have gotten off the ground so that all communities, especially ones still dealing with the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, can thrive.
Last summer’s passage of H.R.1 threatens to drastically cut SNAP benefits, placing millions of families at risk of food insecurity. These policies directly impact families like Ashley Blair’s, for whom programs like WIC are not just helpful—they are lifelines.
This blog is the second in a series by Ashley, a member of CLASP’s Community Partnership Group and VOICE (Victory Over Injustice Creates Equality). The series examines the importance of food justice and access to essential programs like WIC, and reminds us that everyone deserves the resources they need to thrive. Read her first blog here.
By Ashley Blair
We are living in a world that is more plant-forward than ever, with a range of products offering a variety of plant-based meat alternatives that give the same flavor and texture as meat by using ingredients made from plants. As a result, many people choose nutritious plant-based and vegan options to optimize their health. Yet at the same time, legislation aimed at restricting what families can purchase with public benefits is affecting families across the country. As lawmakers propose new limits on eligible foods, increasing oversight, and narrowing choice for households, their actions raise a number of questions: how can it be that there are policies that police what individuals on WIC and SNAP are able to purchase? Why are there very few policies fighting for accessible, nutritious foods across the country—specifically, plant-based foods?
At its core, this tension raises a deeper question: are these policies truly about nutrition, or are they about control? Because when restrictions expand under the banner of “health” but fail to expand access, affordability, and dignity, these policies risk being more hurtful than helpful.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, when someone applies for WIC benefits, they undergo a comprehensive nutrition assessment conducted by registered dietitians/registered dietitian nutritionists, though this varies by local agency. Significantly more urban and large agencies use these professionals for nutrition and breastfeeding assessments than small or rural agencies, which are more likely to have nurses conduct the assessment. As a result of the assessment, food packages can be individually tailored to meet participants’ needs, and substitutions, modifications, and/or eliminations can be made to accommodate special dietary needs or cultural and personal preferences. For example, a vegan parent who is breastfeeding may swap peanut butter for eggs, while someone with a peanut butter allergy could receive canned or dry beans instead. On paper, this flexibility suggests autonomy. In practice, however, that autonomy is often limited by rigid decisions that determine which products are actually approved.
From my personal experience in a plant-based, health-conscious household, it has been difficult to get certain plant-based options for my son with WIC. There are some options I’m able to switch out; for instance, instead of buying Juicy Juice, I get additional funds for fruits and vegetables. But there are some items I’m not able to receive. For example, the vegan options for milk and tofu are soy-based, and my household does not consume soy; but at least in Tennessee, where I live, there are no other plant-based options. Likewise, there is no plant-based yogurt option and no canned fish alternative. While WIC state agencies may choose to offer tahini as a seed butter alternative to peanut butter, that flexibility is inconsistent and often unavailable. These gaps send a clear message: participation in public benefits means accepting limited choice.
After doing my own research, I found that the Ripple pea protein milk my son drinks offers a similar nutritional profile to the soy-based milk—both provide eight grams of protein per serving—while Ripple offers more vitamin D, which is essential for healthy growth and development. Yet despite comparable nutrition, purchasing this product requires medical documentation to justify the substitution. This requirement creates an unnecessary burden for participants and may lead to inequitable access to WIC-eligible foods. When families must prove their preferences or cultural practices through paperwork, the policy shifts from support to surveillance.
I believe everyone deserves access to healthy, delicious food, regardless of lifestyle or dietary needs. Families who prioritize minimally processed, plant-based ingredients to nourish body and soul should not face additional barriers simply because they receive public benefits. Accessibility should mean making healthy eating effortless, delivering convenience and affordability without stigma or excessive gatekeeping.
State and federal lawmakers must re-examine the direction of these policies. When drafting legislation that shapes what families can purchase with WIC and SNAP, pause and imagine your own family gathered around the dinner table, enjoying a meal without compromise—without being told your values, culture, or dietary needs are invalid. No family receiving public benefits should be forced to choose between their health, their beliefs, and their groceries.
Public benefit programs were designed to support health and well-being, not control or restrict how families nourish themselves. True food justice means expanding choice, trusting families, and crafting policies that reflect the full diversity of how communities eat, live, and thrive. Anything less undermines the very purpose of these programs.
January 20, 2026, Washington, D.C. – The first year of Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by unprecedented attacks on economic, racial, and gender justice. In a new report titled “The First Year of Trump’s Second Term: Harms to Children, Families, and Workers,” the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) provides a sampling of how the Trump Administration has pushed immigrants, workers, LGBTQ+ communities, and people of color further to the margins.
CLASP’s report is not intended to be a comprehensive list. Rather, it highlights a number of specific actions and executive orders in the areas of immigration, child care and early education, nutrition, economic supports, health care and mental health, housing, higher education, and workers’ rights. In addition to documenting the harms of this past year, the report offers an overview of responsive actions taken by communities, policymakers, and courts to withstand and counter the administration’s constant attacks on children, families, and workers. Finally, it provides ways that individuals and communities can fight back against these attacks.
“We know Trump’s playbook,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of CLASP. “We know that firing federal workers and slashing the federal government is a blow to the health care and public services that all our families count on.”
“We know that the funding bait and switch that’s canceled food and nutrition programs in order to expand ICE and ‘protect’ us is making all our child care centers and communities less safe. And we know that this playbook of harm, hypocrisy, and hate lines the pockets of Trump’s billionaire cronies while all the rest of our families struggle to pay for groceries and rent,” said Chun-Hoon.
“CLASP is paying attention to the harm and fear being inflicted by the very people who should be supporting us. Our communities are paying attention. And we won’t stop fighting for what we know everyone needs to thrive,” she said
The report is downloadable here.
CLASP’s new timeline, “The First Year of Trump’s Second Term: Harms to Children, Families, and Workers,” provides a clear illustration of just some of the ways that President Trump and his administration have targeted and harmed families, children, immigrants, communities of color, women, and people with low incomes.
This timeline highlights a number of specific actions and executive orders taken in the areas of immigration, child care, early education, higher education, workers’ rights, and public benefits during the first year of Trump’s second term. In its totality, this document shows that children, families, students, and workers are worse off after a year of the Trump Administration’s consistent attacks on people’s rights and access to support. This timeline is not intended to be a comprehensive list. While this document focuses on the administration’s actions, it’s important to note that those actions have emboldened hostility by individuals, states, and localities to families, immigrants, Black and brown communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other communities. It also offers important reminders of actions Trump attempted to take that, as of now, have not come to pass–including his effort to revoke birthright citizenship.
Finally, the timeline presents an overview of some responsive actions taken by communities, policymakers, and courts to withstand and counter the administration’s constant attacks on children, families, and workers; and suggests ways for individuals and communities to fight back against these attacks. In order to define our path forward, we need to understand what we’re fighting against. It is our intention that this timeline will demonstrate what the Trump Administration has done so far as we prepare for continued and new threats.