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.