The federal government may be shut down, but hunger in America hasn’t taken a break. While the nation’s attention is understandably focused on the shutdown’s immediate fallout, we can’t lose sight of a deeply consequential decision that has slipped under the radar: the final release of theU.S. Department of Agriculture’s¹ (USDA) long-standing Household Food Security report.
This decision comes on the heels of sweeping,harmful cuts ² to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—cuts that will make it harder for millions of people to afford food. By eliminating the only comprehensive, government-backed survey that tracks food insecurity in the United States, the USDA is effectively ensuring that the devastating consequences of these cuts will be harder to measure and easier to ignore.
What the Report Is and Why It Matters
For nearly 30 years, theUSDA’s Household Food Security Report³has been the backbone of how hunger is measured in this country, giving the clearest and most consistent picture of who is going hungry and why. The report uses data from theCurrent Population Survey,⁴ a joint project between the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reaches about 60,000 households every month through phone calls and in-person interviews. Every December, the survey adds a special set of food security questions that allow the USDA to measure how many people are struggling to afford food.
For less than $1 million a year, the government has been able to produce a report that informs more than $100 billion in nutrition funding, including SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and school meal programs. This is data that drives real policy, helping advocates, researchers, and lawmakers track hunger over time, evaluate whether our safety net programs are actually working, and hold the government accountable to its promises. No other dataset has the same credibility or reach.
The Food Security report isn’t just a spreadsheet. It’s the foundation for how we understand hunger in America.Other national surveys⁵touch on food hardship, but none come close in scale or depth. Even if the existing surveys were merged, it would take years to rebuild what the USDA report provided in a single release.
Despite this, the Trump Administration has dismissed the report as“redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,”⁶ claiming it offers nothing more than “subjective, liberal fodder.” That framing couldn’t be further from the truth. The report has consistently shown that hunger in America rises and falls with policy decisions and economic conditions, not political spin. Ending this report now, in the same moment as historic SNAP cuts, doesn’t just feel suspicious— it’s strategic.
This is a devastating loss for transparency and accountability. Without this report, we lose our ability to measure the real impact of policy decisions on people’s lives. It means the stories and struggles of millions of families facing hunger—families who are already working, caregiving, and doing everything they can to survive—will become invisible in the data. And when something isn’t measured, it becomes easier to deny that it exists.
The Historical and Systemic Context of Data Suppression
We must not ignore the truth behind ending this report. This decision is part of a long-standing pattern of restricting or eliminating data collection when it exposes inequities or challenges political narratives. Throughout history, the suppression or manipulation of data has been used to hide inequality rather than confront it.
For example, U.S. Census data has repeatedly misrepresented or erased entire communities of color. In1930,⁷ “Mexican” was briefly listed as a separate racial category before being removed in 1940, effectively classifying Mexican Americans as white and masking the discrimination they faced. Native Americans who were not taxed were excluded from the Census until1924,⁸ when they were granted citizenship, and many Asian and multiracial groupswere not⁹ accurately counted until decades later. These omissions have distorted our understanding of poverty, health, housing, and other inequities across racial and ethnic lines.
The same pattern played out during the COVID-19 pandemic, when cases and deaths were not reported¹⁰ with racial or ethnic data, delaying efforts to address the disproportionate impact of the virus. Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and other populations of color experienced higher rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths than white people. However, incomplete data collection, particularly a lack of demographic information, hid the full impact of the pandemic on communities of color.
Historically, marginalized communities are the first to be erased when data disappears. When we stop measuring hunger, we effectively make hunger invisible in the public debate, even though it continues to exist.
The Harm of Ending the Report
Ending this report right now is not a coincidence. It’s intentional. At a time when SNAP is facing some of the harshest cuts we’ve seen in decades, the timing speaks volumes.
Without this report, it becomes almost impossible to measure how many people are being pushed deeper into hunger by these recent policy changes. Even more concerning is how the USDA justified the decision,saying:¹¹
“For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments—failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder. Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019–2023.”
That statement completely misses the point of the data, whose purpose was never to make hunger disappear overnight. Rather, it was to make sure hunger couldn’t be ignored. The report has consistently helped shape stronger nutrition programs and policy decisions that reflect reality. If hunger has remained persistent, that’s not because of the data but because policymakers haven’t done enough with what the data shows. Blaming the report for ongoing hunger is like blaming a thermometer for the fever. The numbers don’t create the problem–they reveal it. It’s Congress’s responsibility to act on what the data exposes, not to silence it.
Ignoring the realities of hunger doesn’t make them disappear; it just magnifies their consequences. The inability to consistently afford nutritious food doesn’t just affect what’s on a family’s table; it affects their health, their stability, and their futures. People living in food-insecure homes are more likely to facechronic illnesses¹² like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, and they experience higher rates of anxiety and depression. Forolder adults,¹³ hunger accelerates physical decline and increases hospitalizations. Forchildren,¹⁴ it hinders brain development, academic performance, and long-term opportunity. All of this comes at a cost not just to individuals and families, but to our entire health care system, which is already strained and overburdened. According to research fromFeeding America,¹⁵ the ripple effects of hunger and poor nutrition drive up medical spending and emergency care use, especially in communities already facing systemic barriers to accessing health care.
When we stop collecting data on hunger, we’re not just losing sight of a social issue—we’re ignoring a public health crisis. By ending this report, advocates lose one of the most powerful tools we have to hold lawmakers accountable for decisions that deepen hunger. States and local agencies lose the baseline data they need to design programs that actually respond to people’s needs. And communities lose their visibility in a system that already struggles to see them clearly.
This decision will harm the very people already most impacted by systemic inequities. Communities of color continue to face disproportionately high rates of hunger because of deep-rooted barriers in housing, wages, and employment—barriers that didn’t appear by accident. Decades of discriminatory policies, from redlining and wage exploitation to unequal access to education and credit, have stripped wealth and opportunity from Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. Those harms compound over generations, leaving families with fewer buffers against rising food costs and economic instability. Without reliable federal data, those disparities become easier to ignore and harder to address. Immigrant families, particularly mixed-status households, risk becoming even more invisible. Fear and misinformation already keep many from applying for food assistance, and removing the data that captures their struggles erases them from the national conversation entirely. Tribal and rural communities, which often experience the highest rates of food insecurity but have the least access to local research or advocacy infrastructure, will see their experiences further minimized or dismissed. And women-headed households—especially Black and Latina single mothers—will be among the hardest hit. Without consistent, credible data to track these inequities, the stories behind the statistics fade from view, and policy debates lose the grounding they need to reflect real life.
The USDA’s claim that this report is “redundant” simply isn’t true. No other survey offers the same breadth, history, or reliability. Alternative sources like food bank surveys or limited state data are valuable but not nationally representative—they cannot replace this federal benchmark.
This isn’t bureaucratic streamlining; it’s data suppression disguised as efficiency. And the outcome is the same every time: the people closest to hunger—families with low incomes, people of color, disabled and older adults, and rural communities—are made invisible just when the nation needs to see them most clearly.
Call to Action
The USDA must reinstate the Household Food Security Report and its data collection immediately. Every day that this report remains silent, the truth about hunger in America slips further out of sight.
Hunger cannot be solved if it is hidden. This report isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet—it’s a reflection of real people, real families, and real lives. It tells the story of parents skipping meals so their children can eat, of seniors stretching fixed incomes, and of workers who are employed full-time but still can’t afford groceries. When we stop collecting that data, we’re not just losing information, we’re choosing not to see.
Lawmakers, advocates, and the public deserve to know the truth about how many people in America, one of the richest countries in the world, are going without enough to eat. Data is accountability. It’s a mirror that forces us to confront what’s broken and gives us the tools to build something better, if we choose to.
Transparency isn’t a political choice, but a moral one that should be upheld no matter the administration. If we truly believe in building a nation where everyone can thrive, then we must have the courage to face the facts, no matter how uncomfortable they are. Restoring this report is not just about research—it’s about restoring the visibility and dignity of the millions of people whose hunger should never be invisible.
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., October 28, 2025—With the federal government shutdown nearly a month old, it is important to note that the chaos, dysfunction, and harm to families and workers caused by the shutdown is a result of deliberate policy choices by the Trump Administration and Republican leadership in Congress.
The stalemate created by the refusal of Congressional leadership and the Trump Administration to come to the table is unnecessarily threatening food assistance, access to Head Start, and other important programs families rely on and forcing millions of people to soon face increasing health care costs.
The government shutdown was entirely avoidable. The lawmakers who voted for H.R. 1 in July actively chose not to extend enhanced premium tax credits to keep health care more affordable, despite knowing that they would expire this year. Instead, lawmakers passed a bill that costs trillions of dollars to pay for tax breaks to the wealthiest and corporations and increased funding for harmful ICE immigration enforcement, all while cutting Medicaid and SNAP and making marketplace health insurance unaffordable for millions of U.S. citizens.
The continued government shutdown has resulted in thousands of federal workers needlessly losing their jobs or not receiving paychecks this month. However, some federal employees like ICE agents are still getting paid to carry out indiscriminate immigration enforcement actions, resulting in more than 170 U.S. citizens being detained. At the same time, construction recently began on a $300 million White House ballroom. This country’s leadership is prioritizing terrorizing families and executive mansion renovations over ensuring that individuals and families receive the support and benefits that they need to thrive.
With the government shutdown approaching November, the funding is at risk for programs that families rely on, like SNAP, WIC, and Head Start. SNAP, which allows approximately 42 million people to afford food, and WIC, which provides nutritional support, education, and other forms of assistance for pregnant women and parents with children under 5 years old, are two of the most effective tools we have to prevent food insecurity, stabilize local economies, and support public health. Suspending or delaying benefits would have devastating consequences for millions of households across the country and will further strain food pantries that are already stretched thin. Head Start and Early Head Start play a valuable role in providing early education to hundreds of thousands of families every year; if the shutdown persists into November, federal grants for more than 100 Head Start programs across the country will be cut, threatening access for more than 65,000 families that depend on the program. Moreover, millions of families will begin to see their cost of health insurance more than double next year.
Congress must extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits, reopen the government, and deliver full coverage of benefits and access to programs that people rely on. Again, this is a manufactured crisis. Despite their statements to the contrary, the administration clearly has the means to use authorized USDA funds until Congress acts to ensure families, seniors, workers, and millions of other people don’t go hungry in November.
On October 6, 2025, Teon Hayes presented the workshop “Cultivating Resilience: Creative Expression for Advocate” at the Prosperity Summit. The session focused on using painting and gardening as tools for wellness and creative expression.
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., October 1, 2025 – After Congress failed to pass a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 by the September 30 deadline, the federal government has shut down. Budgets are moral documents, and Congress should be focused on funding the government in a way that supports children, workers, families, and communities across the country. This includes extending programs that continue to make health care affordable for millions and ensuring that children and families receive the assistance they’re eligible for and need to thrive.
Voters across the country elect their Members of Congress and entrust them to do their jobs. The most basic function of Congress is to pass a budget each year. In a functioning government, this budget would be free from interference by a presidential administration. Instead, the administration is manufacturing chaos and dysfunction to continue to weaken the institutions families rely on to survive.
As conversation and work continue around passing an agreement to fund the government, CLASP’s focus remains on communities being pushed to the margin, workers paid low wages, children, immigrants, communities of color, and people and families living on low incomes.Their safety, security, and well-being should not be held hostage by a dysfunctional government.
Updated April 2, 2025, by Priya Pandey; Spanish version added September 2025 (see link below)
Originally published in 2019 by Rebecca Ullrich and updated in February 2022 by Alejandra Londono Gomez
Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current political climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll.
In January 2025, the Trump Administration rescinded the Biden Administration’s guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection enforcement actions in certain “protected areas.” Immigration enforcement actions had previously been restricted at or near these locations, which include early childhood programs such as licensed child care, preschool, pre-kindergarten, and Head Start programs.
In response, we have updated “A Guide to Creating ‘Safe Space’ Policies for Early Childhood Programs,” which gives practitioners, advocates, and policymakers information and resources to design and implement “safe space” policies that safeguard early childhood programs against immigration enforcement, as well as protect families’ safety and privacy. The guide also includes sample policy text that early childhood providers can adapt for their programs.
The thread between parent and child should be one of love and stability. But too often, substance use tears at that thread until it frays. Sometimes the fraying goes beyond repair, leaving behind wounds and loss that no one can fix.
This crisis hits home for me. The generational cycle of addiction shaped my life. While I managed to find a path forward, it wasn’t because there was a system of resources and support in place. I survived — but I can’t say the same for people I love, or for countless others across this country.
Recovery Is About Families, Not Just Individuals
When we talk about substance use, we often focus on the individual — their journey, their choices, and their healing. But for mothers, recovery goes far beyond just them. Substance use impacts the entire family. A mother’s journey to recovery is deeply tied to her children, her family, and her community. Without recovery support, trauma seeps between generations like water through cracked foundations, weakening structures that might have otherwise held strong.
Consider two families.
In one, a mother seeks help. She is ready to recover, but does not have access to programming that allows her to stay with her children. There are waitlists. She’s told that programs in her community have been cut back due to lack of funding. Defeated, she tries to hold her family together while struggling alone. Her son grows up carrying the weight of his mother’s pain, internalizing the instability, the stigma, and the silence that follows substance use. Years later, the son turns to substances to cope — and he doesn’t survive his battle. His death represents the loss of a brilliant young man who never got the chance to graduate, walk down the aisle, or become a father — he never had the opportunity to truly thrive. He was one of more than 80,000 people who lost their lives to drug overdoses in 2024.
In another family, a mother enters a treatment program that allows her to keep custody of her children. For the first time, she feels supported rather than punished. She receives counseling, housing support, and guidance from other mothers who’ve walked a similar path. Her children are also welcomed into the process, given therapy and space to process their emotions instead of silently carrying them. Together, the family begins to heal and learns how to overcome the trauma that fueled generations of substance use and pain. By the time the mother completes her program, the family has grown stronger, closer, and more resilient — living proof of what’s possible when recovery embraces the whole family.
The Ripple Effect of Losing Support
In 2023, approximately 19 million children in the United States lived with a parent or primary caregiver struggling with substance use; that’s roughly one in four children. Even more heartbreaking, a child growing up in a home with substance use is eight times more likely to develop an addiction than a child who is growing up in a home free of addiction. This highlights a clear intergenerational cycle of addiction, showing how the cycle repeats when families don’t get the support they need.
When a mother or other caregiver in recovery can’t get the help they need — whether that’s counseling, child care during treatment, peer mentorship, or safe housing — the impact doesn’t stop with them. The consequences ripple outward, shaping the lives of their children and even future generations. For children, this often looks like persistent anxiety or depression, behavioral disruptions or trouble in school, and deep feelings of neglect or abandonment. The effects can linger for years, shaping mental health, relationships, and opportunities well into adulthood.
Children whose mothers lack access to recovery support are more likely to experience housing instability, food insecurity, and trauma. These early hardships not only cause immediate harm but also set the stage for poor health, educational setbacks, and cycles of poverty that are incredibly difficult to break. This is why recovery support must extend beyond the parent — it must embrace the entire family.
The Disproportionate Harm to Black Families
For Black mothers, the stakes are even higher. The child welfare system disproportionately targets Black families, often under the guise of “protection,” but too often mirroring tactics rooted in slavery: separating children from their mothers, weakening family bonds, and undermining the stability of Black households.
Enslaved Black women were denied the right to raise their own children, a deliberate act to dismantle family structures and maintain control. When a Black mother faces substance use challenges, the system is more likely to remove her children rather than provide the support she needs to recover while keeping her family intact. Black children are two to three times more likely to be separated from their families than white children.
This was my own reality. And to make matters worse, after separating families, the system does very little to follow up with the child or parent to ensure their needs are met, their mental health is cared for, and they are not left carrying invisible wounds for years to come.
Policy decisions must be made with care, recognizing their impact not only on individuals but on children, extended families, and entire communities. The conditions we see today in many Black and brown neighborhoods — violence, police surveillance, poor health outcomes, inadequate housing, and limited opportunities — are not the result of individual failings. They are the predictable outcomes of intentional policies and decades of disinvestment. Ending dedicated funding for substance use programs would only intensify these harms, stripping away one of the few pathways to healing and family stability.
What Recovery for Mothers Should Look Like
To create real change, we must invest in a system of care that truly supports recovery and breaks intergenerational cycles of addiction. This means funding and expanding:
Comprehensive, family-centered treatment that allows women to heal without losing custody of their children.
Safe, stable housing that is affordable and located near treatment and support services.
Access to child care during treatment and recovery programs, so mothers don’t have to choose between healing and caregiving.
Peer recovery support led by women with lived experience, who can provide guidance and empathy and reduce stigma.
Culturally responsive care and professionals who address racial inequities and center the needs of Black women and families.
Targeted support for children and youth, ensuring they learn healthy coping mechanisms, build resilience, and receive opportunities to heal as they navigate the impacts of substance use in their families.
Family therapy for parents, children, and extended relatives, designed to strengthen relationships, repair trust, and end intergenerational cycles of addiction.
Research and policy solutions that explicitly connect substance use to mental health and trauma, with a focus on historical and generational trauma as a driver of substance misuse. This includes building a workforce of professionals trained to explore, address, and heal trauma at its core.
The Path Forward
We cannot afford to go backward. Too many lives are on the line. That’s why it’s essential to protect and strengthen funding dedicated to substance use prevention, treatment, and long-term recovery support and services. These resources ensure that people — especially those without insurance — can access treatment, prevention programs, and recovery support. Disrupting these funding streams would be devastating not only to mothers but also to the generations connected to them.
Dedicated and stable funding for treatment, prevention, and recovery services doesn’t just support individuals in recovery, it also creates a lifeline for their children. It ensures families can stay together, heal together, and rebuild together. Without that funding, too many families are left trapped in cycles of trauma, loss, and grief. Ending funding support for substance use deepens racial inequities, perpetuates historical harms, and robs future generations of stability and opportunity.
Instead, we should be expanding investments in family-based recovery models and holding systems accountable for keeping families together. The two families introduced in the beginning stories run parallel, but the outcomes couldn’t be more different. The difference wasn’t the mother’s choices or love — it was access. One family met closed doors while the other found open arms.
Recovery is not just about surviving substance use. For mothers and those they love, it’s about building a future where healing is possible, families are whole, and every generation has the chance to thrive.
For me, this truth carries the weight of my brother, David. He was the son who never got the chance to thrive. His absence is a constant reminder of what’s at stake — the fragile threads that hold families together, and how every policy decision and funding choice determines whether those threads hold or unravel. My heart goes out to every frayed thread that has ended in loss due to substance use. This grief and absence ripple through families, felt for generations to come — a smile no longer there, a presence no longer felt.
The fight for healing and wholeness for families navigating substance use must continue.
Dedicated to “Lil David.” May you rest in eternal peace.
Washington, D.C., September 12, 2025—This week, rulings on two different court challenges ensured that immigrant families will continue to have access to Head Start and other important programs. Earlier this year, several federal agencies issued notices that would reinterpret the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) to restrict eligibility for some federal programs to “qualified immigrants,” in some cases expanding the list of what are considered “federal public benefits.” Last month, CLASP submitted comments in opposition to this harmful new interpretation. At the same time, several court cases challenged the legality of these actions.
The first case, filed by attorneys general in 20 states and Washington, D.C., challenged the federal government’s reinterpretation of PRWORA and resulted in a preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of the reinterpretation in those states and D.C. This challenge was across three government agencies: the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor. In states not covered by the lawsuit, any changes to program eligibility and an implementation timeline are still contingent on additional guidance.
The second case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged this interpretation, specifically as it relates to Head Start. Yesterday,a federal judge granted a nationwide preliminary injunctionblocking the directive to exclude immigrant children in Head Start nationwide.
“These court rulings are important victories for immigrant families and our country. Unfortunately, so much damage has already been done because these directives have instilled fear, along with the fact that other actions of this administration—including unprecedented immigration enforcement measures—have caused significant harm,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, CLASP’s president and executive director. “We believe that every family should have access to the programs and services they need to thrive, and we will keep fighting until that happens.”
Administration officials have already taken steps to challenge these rulings, as their goal is to reduce access to and ultimately dismantle these important programs. The well-being of our next generation depends on protecting these programs and the children and families they have served for decades.
By Christopher Rugaber
{EXCERPT)
Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director at the Center for Law and Social Policy, said that the expiration of the Biden administration’s child tax credit, as well as subsidies for child care and other aid, have made it harder to cut poverty, particularly among African-American households. Chun-Hoon was head of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau during the Biden administration.
“Policy absolutely matters,” Chun-Hoon said. “Unless we make more permanent changes, any gains we see will be temporary.”
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2025—Today’s release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s national Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance data for 2024 shows that while the overall economy is strong, the nation has much more to do to reduce poverty, especially among women and Black Americans.
For the most part, the poverty rate remained largely unchanged from 2023 to 2024. But the poverty rate among Black Americans increased from 17.9 percent in 2023 to 18.4 percent in 2024. And while overall child poverty rates dropped very slightly from 2023, the number of Black children living in poverty increased from 20.3 percent in 2023 to 22.7 percent in 2024, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure. This measure looks at not simply earnings, but the resources people have after factoring in work and medical expenses, taxes, as well as tax credits and non-cash benefits.
For the second year in a row, women faced a large earnings gap. The median earnings for women in 2024 were $45,380, while the median earnings for men were $60,020. This gap is greater than in 2023, when median earnings for women were $43,200 and $57,740 for men.
“These numbers are not surprising,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of CLASP. “The wage gap between men and women has existed for decades, as has the disparity in Black poverty rates compared to the rest of the country. While the nation has made incremental improvements, the reasons for these disparities are systemic, and we must do more to disrupt them. There’s no silver bullet to remedy these inequalities; rather, we need sustained investments to close the gender-racial wage gap—higher wages, more equal access to quality jobs, affordable family care, equitable tax policy, and paid leave. We should solve for people’s basic needs, not eviscerate our social safety net.”
Signs already point to a weakening economy in 2025. For instance, the August 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report showed an addition of only 22,000 jobs last month, well below economists’ expectations, and unemployment at a four-year high of 4.3 percent.
Black families are the last to do well, even when the economy is growing. The most recent BLS report made that clear, showing the unemployment rate for white men was 3.7 percent, but was 7.1 percent for Black men. The report also showed the unemployment rate for Black women was 6.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for white women.
The gender wage gap persists for a variety of reasons, notably that women are still concentrated in some of the lowest-paid jobs, the price of child care remains out of reach for families, and employers are implementing return-to-office policies. The real-world effects of inflexible work policies and unaffordable care are already being felt: the share of working mothers ages 25-44 in the labor market has fallen every month in 2025 and dropped three percentage points between January and June. This is the lowest level of labor force participation from women with children in more than three years.
Increased poverty in 2025 is all but assured due to the severe restructuring of programs that support basic needs in July’s reconciliation bill and the Trump Administration’s executive actions aimed at people with low incomes, immigrant families, women, people of color, and other historically marginalized communities. Congress, with the administration’s approval, has consistently chosen to exclude many families with low incomes and immigrants from the Child Tax Credit, cut Medicaid and SNAP, increase immigration enforcement, and boost tax breaks for the ultra-rich.
“The president promised to lower costs. He and this Congress have clearly broken that promise for so many, making it more expensive for families to afford not just gas and milk but other family basics like housing, health care, and child care. This is not just a broken promise. It’s a breach of contract to the American people,” said Chun-Hoon.
Poverty is not inevitable. It’s the direct result of policy decisions. We know how to reduce it, and now it’s time for policymakers to choose dignity for all and invest in our communities.
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., September 3, 2025—On September 9, the U.S. Census Bureau will release national Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance data for 2024. We expect the numbers to show more poverty in 2024, particularly among children, and more people without health insurance. When we see the data, however, we must consider that the outlook for 2025 and beyond is ominous, given how precipitously the conditions for people facing economic insecurity have declined this year.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, the administration and Congress have unleashed a cascade of attacks on people with low incomes, including communities of color, immigrants and their families, and others who have been historically marginalized. These attacks have included slashing public benefit programs; issuing executive orders dismantling diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives; ripping families apart through a horrific mass deportation effort and gutting protections and services to immigrants, including U.S. citizen children; eliminating labor protections for millions of workers; and decimating the nation’s data collection efforts that are critical to accurate and equitable decision-making. Through these and other actions, the Trump Administration’s reckless disregard for people’s health, safety, and well-being will have dire consequences for the future of the country.
These attacks are particularly evident in the reconciliation bill passed by Congress, which is causing unprecedented harm to workers, people of color, immigrants, women, and children. In addition to excluding many families with low incomes from the Child Tax Credit, the bill cuts essential benefit programs, including Medicaid and SNAP. Although these changes will not be fully implemented until 2026 and beyond, they are already having a chilling effect among people who rely on these programs to meet their basic needs. Congress made these cuts to fund historic increases in immigration enforcement that undermine family unity and well-being and to provide tax cuts to the wealthy, which will only exacerbate poverty and wealth inequality.
The September 9 data will likely show another annual increase in people without health insurance coverage. The end of Covid-era protections for Medicaid coverage caused many people to lose coverage in 2024, although the availability of enhanced premium tax credits in the Marketplace likely offset some Medicaid losses. Congress’s action in 2025 to cut Medicaid and enhanced Marketplace tax credits by more than $1 trillion is estimated to cause nearly 15 million people to lose coverage in the coming years.
The full effect of millions of people losing health insurance, food assistance, and other supports—and how that loss will harm not just individuals but their families, communities, and the larger economy—will drive even more people deeper into poverty and instability for years to come.
We will have more to say after the Census Bureau releases the data next week. For now, CLASP reiterates our commitment to fighting for policies that center the dignity and autonomy of all people, especially those whom the Trump Administration and the current majority in Congress are most focused on harming with their punitive and dangerous actions.
