The following statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Washington, D.C., August 19, 2026—On September 15, the U.S. Census Bureau will release reports with national data on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance for 2025. While we anticipate a slight rise in poverty across the board compared to the data from 2024, we know that next month’s numbers will serve as a bellwether for what’s coming.

The changes wrought by H.R.1, signed into law by President Trump in July 2025, are already taking effect in communities across the country. For example, Congress let the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expire last December when it passed H.R.1, pushing nearly three million people off their health insurance in early 2026. While the 2025 data don’t yet capture this drop in access to affordable health insurance for millions, we know that individuals and families are desperately struggling to pay for health care.

We should anticipate a rise in poverty for women, higher poverty for children of all races, and more poverty among immigrants, all driven by the many provisions in H.R.1 that are destabilizing families, such as the elimination of more than $200 billion in basic food assistance over the next decade. SNAP work requirements have also been tightened for elderly people and people with disabilities. Already, between October 2025 and February 2026, we’ve seen WIC participation decline by 250,000 people.

The administration’s relentless attacks on immigrants and their families will continue to have a chilling effect on access to the public benefit programs they are eligible for. This includes policymakers imposing significant eligibility restrictions on Medicaid, ACA, and SNAP for immigrants authorized to be in the U.S. In addition, immigration enforcement has created conditions in which workers lose wages and can fall into poverty if they stay home due to fear of ICE officers at workplaces.

While the administration and Congressional leaders have targeted immigrants in their slashing of social safety net programs, populations across the country are seeing their Medicaid, food assistance, and child care assistance gutted at the federal level in favor of funding military actions and aggressive immigration enforcement. We also know that last fall’s longest-ever government shutdown—a crisis manufactured by the White House and Congress—pushed countless people to the economic brink. Moreover, millions are living with the consequences of policy choices that have driven up inflation, driven down wages, and reduced funding for programs that meet basic needs. As a result, far too many people are taking on debt just to buy groceries and pay for the gas they need to commute to work.

We expect the September reports will show a wider gender pay gap and a rise in income inequality for Black households relative to white households. This phenomenon is largely driven by the disproportionate job losses experienced by Black women and the fact that it took Black women twice as long to find a job as white women in the second half of 2025. After attaining employment, Black women are paid less than their white peers, regardless of their educational level.

The Census reports will be much more than a look-back at the state of the country in 2025. Sadly, they will be a preview of the harm ahead for our communities because policymakers have chosen to enrich the wealthiest and finance a siege on immigrants over helping people meet their most basic, human needs. Poverty is the result of systemic failures, and our nation and the people who show up every day to make our economy work deserve better.

By Michael Cuglietta

Excerpt:

Giving charitable donations to families who don’t need them is troubling as it comes when inflation is high, and the administration is slashing funding for social services and other supports that many families rely on, said Ashley Burnside, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C.

“They’ve made dramatic cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP,” Burnside said, referencing federal programs that provide health insurance and help purchasing food. “If a parent can’t afford groceries each month, it’s going to be very unlikely that they ‘re going to be able to put money away towards a child’s account or towards college savings.”

Orlando Sentinel subscribers can read the full article here. 

Note: This article also appeared in the Denver Gazette in CO; The Herald Enquirer in NC; Lancaster Online in PA; Sun-Sentinel in FL; CPA Practice Advisor; and Daily Gazette in NY. 

By Jessica Washington

Excerpt:

“We are seeing a trend around the administration scapegoating immigrants and not pointing to the actual bad actors: corporations,” said Isha Weerasinghe, director of the public benefits justice team at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for people with low incomes.

…

Weerasinghe said that the administration is using a well-worn tactic of blaming marginalized groups to take away benefits from the population more broadly.

“All of us know about the ‘welfare queen’ narrative, and that worked,” said Weerasinghe, referencing a racist trope popularized by Ronald Reagan to characterize Black people on benefits as greedy fraudsters. “It created a lot of hatred toward public benefits, and also this willingness for the public to be OK with this kind of crackdown that was absolutely unnecessary.”

Read the full article in The Intercept here. 

Co-authored by Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, Center for Law and Social Policy, National Association for the Education of Young Children, and National Association for Family Child Care

[Editor’s Note: Last Updated July 22, 2026]

Medicaid is an important source of health coverage for the early childhood education professionals who support child development and care for children while parents work, and for the children and families these educators serve. Twelve states cover a third or more of the child care workforce through Medicaid, making the program an essential part of ensuring the health and well-being of child care professionals. In turn, a healthy early childhood workforce can most effectively support the positive development of children in their earliest years. Threats to Medicaid coverage for early childhood educators would likely further deepen a child care crisis driven in large part by inadequate compensation for this critical workforce. To address the root of this problem, the child care workforce needs higher wages and access to quality benefits which requires significant, robust, and sustainable public investments. Until this core problem is addressed, many workers necessarily rely on Medicaid and SNAP.

Read the report on the Georgetown Center for Children and Families’ website here. 

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., July 2, 2026–July 4th will mark one year since Congress passed and Donald Trump signed into law the Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025. Also known as H.R.1, the bill included the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the programs’ histories and prioritized funding to separate immigrant families and give tax breaks to the wealthy. As families continue to deal with the rising costs of living, they are now also left without health care and food assistance. 

H.R.1 slashed nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act Marketplace tax credits. More than 1 million people have dropped Marketplace coverage and more than 10 million are projected to lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade. The bill’s impact on food assistance is already being felt, as SNAP participation has declined in every state since H.R.1 became law. Based on the latest available data, SNAP participation has fallen by more than 4 million people, or roughly 10 percent; and in the 12 states with available child-level data, more than 700,000 children have lost SNAP food assistance–all because the majority in Congress and the administration prioritized billionaires over families. We expect these harms to grow as states fully implement new eligibility restrictions and other measures in response to future state cost-sharing requirements.

These numbers do not reflect a decline in hunger or reduction in poverty. They represent millions of families who continue to struggle with medical bills, rising food costs, and economic hardship but are now being pushed out of the very programs designed to help them. And people who are technically eligible to keep Medicaid or food assistance will face significant new paperwork barriers, including more frequent Medicaid renewals that will make it harder to access the benefits they qualify for. 

H.R.1 provided $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and carved out lawfully present immigrants from basic needs programs. This historic ballooning of immigration enforcement funding has turbocharged family separations and child and family detention, threatening child safety and well-being. An estimated 205,000 children,145,000 of whom are U.S. citizens, have experienced having a parent in detention. To make matters worse, these U.S. citizen children are also likely among those who are now losing access to the Child Tax Credit, at a time when they and their families are in most need of support. These changes will increase child poverty; and, building on the exclusions from the 2017 tax reforms that excluded eligibility for children without a Social Security number, affect nearly 4 million children. Moreover, the high level of disenrollment in SNAP and Medicaid is in part due to H.R.1’s exclusion of lawfully present immigrants, such as asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the chilling effect on people whose children are likely eligible but are disenrolling because they are concerned about their participation being used against them in immigration proceedings. 

The DHS funding granted through H.R.1 is enabling immigration actions that are actively endangering our nation’s children. At least 79 children have been tear gassed or pepper sprayed and over 6,200 children have seen the inside of an immigration detention camp, where they experienced disruptions to their education, poor nutrition, and delayed medical care. The fear and uncertainty is affecting not only the children directly impacted by these policies, but also their classmates, teachers, and neighbors. The harms of H.R.1 will reverberate for generations.

Policymakers should invest in policies that support family unity and actually center community well-being, such as community-led food systems that keep families fed, regardless of political shifts. Congress must  rescind the harm caused by H.R.1 and restore access to health coverage, food assistance, and economic supports. Repairing this harm will require that Congress moves away from policies rooted in suspicion, punishment, and unsupported fraud narratives and instead advance policies grounded in evidence, dignity, and the realities families face. 

By Suzanne Wikle

The first year and a half of Trump’s second term and the 119th Congress makes it very clear that policymakers are waging a wholesale attack on people’s ability to afford health care – a basic human right that everyone should have. Republicans’ assault on health care goes far beyond the $1 trillion they cut from Medicaid and ACA last year as part of H.R.1, the Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025.

The Republican-led H.R.1 is estimated to cause nearly 17 million people to lose their health insurance in the next decade, in large part because of new Medicaid eligibility requirements forcing people to prove they are working, volunteering, or exempt from the requirements. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an interim final rule to states about implementation details. As pointed out by 48 patient advocacy groups, the guidance goes against promises made by Congressional Republicans and makes it harder for people who are “medically frail” to stay eligible for Medicaid.

Prior to the rule being published, states were under the impression from CMS that they would be able to use existing data to identify someone as medically frail (e.g., someone with a cancer diagnosis). Under the published rule, people will now have to prove that a medical condition “significantly impairs” their ability to work. This will be incredibly burdensome for individuals and increase the workload of state eligibility workers. The administration didn’t have to do this and could have made it easier for people with cancer diagnoses or other illnesses to remain eligible for Medicaid. But administration officials went out of their way to write the rules in a way that will cause more people to lose their health insurance.

States are starting to speak up about the cost to implement H.R.1’s Medicaid changes. In addition to taking health care away from millions of people, states are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars to change computer systems and hire new eligibility staff. The Trump Administration is adding to state budget woes by again going beyond what H.R.1 required in terms of financing changes related to State Directed Payments – a wonky but important way federal dollars flow to states to keep Medicaid programs afloat. H.R.1 cut these funds to states and then CMS released guidance last month that will triple the financing cuts that were included in the legislation. If this stands in the final guidance, state budgets will face even greater Medicaid cuts, which will lead to even more people losing health care.

To add to the devasting cuts in H.R.1, CMS issued a proposed rule for insurers in the 2027 Marketplace. Once again, CMS continued its assault on people by significantly changing the rules to favor insurers and harm people. The proposed rule allows insurers to require people to pay more out of their pocket with higher deductibles and cost-sharing. Moreover, the rule would allow insurers to offer “no network” plans – literally putting the responsibility on people to ask their doctors if they will accept their insurance plan’s reimbursement rate. This is nothing but a giveaway to insurance companies and will undoubtedly lead to people paying more, delaying or forgoing health care, and likely taking on more medical debt.

Congress’s willingness to let enhanced subsidies for Marketplace insurance expire at the end of 2025 led to 1.2 million fewer people with insurance so far, and even more with lower tier plans that require more out-of-pocket costs and may have fewer benefits or more restrictive medication coverage.  The recent actions by the Trump Administration will only add to the growing number of people who recently lost their health insurance.

The pattern is clear – at every opportunity and with every tool at its disposal, the Trump Administration is making it harder and more expensive for people to have health insurance and get the care they need. The full impact of H.R.1 and these proposed rules will take years to materialize, but there is no doubt that millions of people will lose their health insurance or have to pay more out of their pocket to use their insurance. It doesn’t have to be this way. We know that poverty a policy choice, but so is meeting people’s basic needs.

It’s clear that the current Congress and administration are intent on dismantling health care instead of solving the health care crisis in this country. CLASP will continue to work with partners to elevate the need for true solutions that live up to our belief that health care is a basic human right.

This event has already happened. Please see the full recording, learn more about the speakers, and find a list of resources below.

On June 25, 2026, the latest installment of CLASP’s Equity Matters series focused on how racism shapes fraud narratives of public benefits programs in the current public discourse. Our panel highlighted the history of racism in public benefits program administration, the ways that fraud narratives harm recipients, how policies have either exacerbated or refuted these narratives, and how advocates and lawmakers can support both public benefits recipients and administrators.

Watch the full recording below:

Speakers:

Framing

• Wendy Chun-Hoon, Executive Director, CLASP
• Jesse Fairbanks, Policy Analyst, Public Benefits Justice
• Teon Hayes, Senior Policy Analyst, Public Benefits Justice

Discussion

• Adriana Cadena, Executive Director, Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign
• Christina Hasaan, Community Engagement Consultant and Alumnus, CLASP Community Partnership Group
• Ifeoma Ike, Founder and Chief Equity Weaver, Pink Cornrows
• Jamila Michener, PhD, Associate Professor, Director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures—Cornell University
• Parker Gilkesson Davis, Senior Policy Analyst, CLASP (moderator)

Resources from the Event

By Kaelin Rapport

This new brief highlights the punitive responses to homelessness, substance use, and mental health challenges—such as forced treatment, detention, and reduced housing assistance—perpetuate the historic failures that pushed people into institutions, prisons, and homelessness instead of care. Rather than criminalizing people in crisis, policymakers should invest in voluntary, community-based mental health services, supportive housing, peer-led care, crisis response alternatives, and other supports that protect dignity and meet people’s needs.

>>Read the full brief here.

By Kaelin Rapport and Isha Weerasinghe

U.S. intervention in foreign countries can have long-lasting and irrevocable consequences, both here and abroad. Since the Trump Administration launched military strikes in Iran on February 28, the human and economic toll has been high. Hundreds of lives have been lost and scores of families in Iran have been displaced from their homes. And in the U.S., many people are struggling with a higher cost of living that could push individuals and families into economic insecurity. 

War has not yet been officially declared on Iran; likewise, Congress has not formally approved the war. Yet according to a hearing on April 29 where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials briefed the House Armed Services Committee, the cost of these U.S.-initiated military strikes has been close to $25 billion. Others believe this estimate to be low, considering the Pentagon asked for $200 billion for the conflict. These estimates do not include the potential costs of lifetime disability benefits for the 55,000 troops deployed in the region who have been exposed to toxins and environmental hazards, or the costs to U.S residents. 

Oil and Food Costs

The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has delayed and, in some cases, completely stopped cargo ships from reaching their destinations around the world. Overall transit through the Strait has been down by up to 95 percent. While oil shortages and rising prices have received widespread media attention, the delivery of other commodities integral to daily life for most Americans has also been halted. 

On April 27, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned his colleagues of the looming food crisis spurred by the war. In addition to oil, the Strait of Hormuz is a significant global pathway in the distribution of liquified natural gas and fertilizers. Natural gas is a key component of nitrogen-based fertilizer production. Large amounts of sulfur, used in phosphatic fertilizer, is also produced in the region. Approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil supply and 33 percent of all seaborne fertilizer passes through the Strait. 

The Climate Solutions Lab estimates that U.S. households have spent approximately $245 more on gasoline and diesel since the beginning of the war. Higher fuel prices mean higher fertilizer production and supply chain costs. As a result, people will have to pay more to grow and package consumable products across the board. Oil is a key building block in petrochemicals, which are present in more than 95 percent of the plastic and synthetic materials used around the world. 

While grocery prices are already high, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Consumer Price Index predicts that prices for all foods will increase by 2.9 percent this year. The longer the conflict continues, the higher prices will rise, especially if the Strait remains closed through the spring and summer planting seasons. Farmers will soon have to make decisions about their crops for 2027, and constrained access to quality fertilizers will negatively impact global food security for months to come. 

With no end to the blockade in sight, we are faced with a clear picture of the future: everyday items will be more expensive.

Debt and Mental Health

The total cost of the war could be as high as $1 trillion, or $5,000 per American household. Many people were already using their credit cards to cover basic needs like groceries prior to the war. Higher gas and food prices, as well as increased utility costs and steadily rising inflation rates will force them to rely on their credit cards even more. More people are carrying various forms of debt, including larger amounts of credit card debt, which can not only impact individual credit scores but also increases predatory lending and debt collection. This could result in higher car insurance premiums and higher deposits for utilities, and could also create barriers to housing and/or employment, as increased debt tends to erode a person’s economic mobility and security. 

All of these increased costs to food, gas, utilities, and housing affect individual and family mental health. According to the American Psychiatric Association, financial stability is a core social determinant of mental health. Equally concerning are the impacts of the ongoing military conflict on the well-being of soldiers abroad; their families and communities; the immigrant diaspora; and the general public. 

While Americans pay for war with their tax dollars, causing humanitarian and economic turmoil, our existing safety net has been decimated by H.R. 1, which will cut over $1.1 trillion in funding from health care and at least $186 billion from food assistance programs over the next decade. These cuts to state-level funding will have far-reaching consequences. One likely outcome is that states will divert funds away from education to fill the gaps in health care and food assistance coverage, which will drive young people with low incomes into the armed forces as other opportunities for upward economic mobility dry up. 

Past wars have had negative economic repercussions for U.S. residents. Most conflicts since World War II have been marked by increased debt, taxation and inflation, and decreased spending and investing during or after U.S. involvement. That trend continues with the War in Iran.  Increased energy and food costs will ensure that more families will go hungry, take on more debt, and further entrench populations with low incomes in poverty. The cycle of war continues: where policymakers approach each new conflict with amnesia about the lasting consequences, domestically and internationally, of the past ones. 

By Rainesford Stauffer

Excerpt:

Experts stress that America has the resources to make life more affordable. And frequently, communities are fighting for those solutions themselves, from movements for student-debt cancellation or student loan forgiveness to tenants organizing to fight for affordable housing or needed repairs. Developing policy that pulls people out of survival mode has to be part of addressing affordability, according to Isha Weerasinghe, director of public benefits justice at the Center for Law and Social Policy. “We want to move forward, move above existing to thriving,” explains Weerasinghe. That means not just being in a place of paying to exist, or the stress of making ends meet, but being able to think about spending money on things you enjoy, too. “That seems very simplistic, but it’s so important,” said Weerasinghe. “Why can’t we all deserve that?”

…

Right now, the country is experiencing high inflation, labor cuts, trade restrictions, and the devastation of H.R. 1. Weerasinghe and the CLASP team want to think about a public benefits system that is more inclusive. For example, while the team works on SNAP reform, they are also thinking about food sovereignty, or solutions that have worked for communities for centuries despite disinvestment. Weerasinghe stresses that expanded inclusivity also ensures that immigrants are able to access all benefits. Then, what supports that in terms of revenue is building strategies around tax benefits to improve the system, like the child tax credit or the earned income tax credit.

If more people are able to access resources, it means more buy-in to the system, which means more people can get the services they need. For example, Weerasinghe explained, if more people have access to Medicaid, and there were less restrictions on how providers were able to reimburse for their services, it means more money in the health care system. Or, take SNAP: When there are less people who are receiving SNAP, while food prices are going up, fewer people participating means less purchasing power. That, in turn, impacts small businesses as well as larger ones—and since it impacts their profits, it leads to job cuts, which will affect the economy overall. More inclusivity benefits the economy across the board.

For people like Theresa and her family, she knows firsthand how these policies could actually make life easier and more affordable. “Taxpayer money should be spent investing in the present and future of our country,” she said, “not gutting social programs to provide tax cuts for corporations and billionaires.”

“The purpose of social programs—a lot of them were built in the ’60s, in the time of the civil rights movement as well—they’re built as a bridge to ensure that people have access to services and to make sure that all people have an ability to survive, but also to thrive,” Weerasinghe adds.  “I think we have somehow come back to square one with this, and we have forgotten the purpose of why those programs were built in the first place.”

Read the full article in Dame Magazine here.