By Ashley Blair, member of the Community Partnership Group,
Ashley is a member of CLASP’s Community Partnership Group (CPG) and VOICE (Victory Over Injustice Creates Equality). In this final installment of her CPG blog series, she embodies the work of VOICE by uplifting the voices of people who have lived experience of using SNAP, WIC, and other public benefits programs. Read her first blog here and her second blog here.
For many mothers and fathers, becoming a parent is an incredibly rewarding journey. From hearing the child’s heartbeat for the first time to hearing their first cry, parenthood is a beautiful experience. Many people dream of the day they become parents and place all the love they have inside of them into this tiny human.
While much about parenthood is wonderful and loving, it can also cause financial and mental hardships, even affecting education and career choices that could place parents in a better financial position. As a mother of two, I can attest to how my financial focus has shifted to my children’s needs, and how I’ve given things up because of those needs. While this is my experience, I’ve gathered the lived experiences from three mothers and one father who candidly shared how parenthood, while a beautiful experience, comes with its challenges.
A 33-year-old mother of three from Memphis shares how becoming a parent has affected her financially and in her career. When I ask how her financial situation changed after having children, she replies that it “changed quite a bit. I’ve had to budget and make it a priority to only get what my children need, which is still at times difficult. My babies could only drink Gerber Good Start formula, which was not on the WIC list at the time, so I had to pay out of pocket for it.” She also remembers how she has had to, and still must, sacrifice her own needs. For example, she left the workforce to become a full-time student in order to graduate sooner in hopes of getting a better-paying position to support her children. This mother credits her faith in Jesus Christ for sustaining her and her family on the days she feels overwhelmed or mentally drained.
At the end of our conversation, I ask how she thinks societal or governmental support could be improved for parents. She responds, “I would have to say, increase wages to help us parents stay afloat with our bills and afford our children’s needs. That way it doesn’t feel like we have to choose between two important needs, whether paying rent to keep a roof over our family’s head, paying for medications, keeping lights on, and having enough food.”
“As long as I can remember, I’ve had to work two to three jobs to ensure my children had everything they needed. I believe that it’s just what has to be done. You just have to do what you have to do.”
The lived experience of a 69-year-old mother of two who also lives in Memphis shows how much hasn’t changed in regard to parenthood as an entry point into poverty. “As long as I can remember, I’ve had to work two to three jobs to ensure my children had everything they needed. I believe that it’s just what has to be done. You just have to do what you have to do.” Eventually, she was able to become a manager at one of the top logistics companies in Memphis, a job she kept until she retired. While she doesn’t regret her choices, when this mother looks back over her life, she knows there had to be and should be a better way. Raised during the Civil Rights movement, this woman had experienced many injustices in her childhood that led to poverty and worked hard to ensure her children did not have to continue that cycle. “Breaking generational cycles,” she says about that achievement. “If I have to sacrifice my needs for my children, so be it,” she adds passionately. This mother is adamant about change and would like to see parents enjoying their children more and not being stuck at work to make ends meet. “The policies have gotten a little better, but there is still much work to be done,” she tells me. “I would like to see policies shaped by people who have actually been in these conditions. It will create more opportunities for parents to get ahead.”
A 36-year-old father of two from Nashville absolutely adores his children. He speaks so highly of them, and beams with joy at just the mention of their names. He is and has always been present to help his wife and children and would not trade this life for the world. After his first child was born, he recalls having to work a second job for two years just to take care of additional expenses like clothes, formula, and diapers. “After that second year, my wife and I had our second child and could no longer occupy the space of a one-bedroom loft, so we purchased a home which, as you can imagine, brought … unexpected expenses.” Through this transition, he had to be very diligent about spending habits to ensure he could provide for his family. “As a traveling musician, it is not always easy to accept a gig. I have to be intentional with work and schedule choices to stay present in my home. I’ve also had to gain better financial literacy to set up a future for my children’s interest and future finances.” Contrary to popular belief, even two-parent households can face financial and career hardships.
A 35-year-old mother of one child from Birmingham, AL, became overcome with emotion recounting the events that led to her giving up her dream career. “Before I had my daughter, I was chasing my dream of living in Los Angeles and becoming a film producer. I had already completed my college degree and was fully committed to building that life for myself. But right before I became a mother—and without financial support from her family—the reality of trying to survive in Los Angeles became overwhelming.” With tears streaming down her face, she recounted what her life could have been and the version of herself that she once imagined. In addition to grieving her long-held dream, becoming a mother has kept her from excelling in her current career. This mother now has to prioritize flexibility over rapid career growth. “I’ve had to think not just about what would advance my career, but what realistically allows me to be present and available for my child.” When I ask how she thinks societal or government support could be improved for parents, she raises some valuable points. “The eligibility requirements for assistance programs like food benefits should better reflect the real cost of living. Many parents earn just enough to disqualify them from programs like SNAP, but not enough to comfortably afford rent, groceries, child care, utilities, and health care.” Being a parent who falls into that “in-between” income bracket has caused her to face challenges when accessing resources like SNAP, and she feels that tiered support levels would help prevent families from constantly living paycheck to paycheck.
Something I noticed that all these lived experiences have in common is the love the parents have for their children! Their willingness to sacrifice their dreams and to go without so their children can have a better life speaks volumes. Even in the midst of teetering on the edge of, or falling into, poverty as defined by the government, these women and men are putting their children first.Being a parent is no small feat. Being responsible for a helpless little human being is an amazing gift, but the world we live in makes it a little difficult to survive with children. There may be many programs to help mothers specifically gain access to resources for their children, but often men do not have that same access. Parents are parents and resources should be accessible to all. I pray these testimonies give light to the hardships people face when entering parenthood and how they can put a strain on finances, emotional well-being, and career opportunities. I personally believe this can be overcome by uplifting the voices of the parents who have lived in or close to poverty so that the government can understand what is actually going on in communities around the country. There is strength in our voice!
By Parker Gilkesson Davis and Teon Hayes
For years, much of CLASP’s food assistance work has centered on protecting and strengthening federal programs like SNAP and WIC. SNAP helps millions of families put food on the table, and WIC supports pregnant people, babies, and young children at some of the most vulnerable points in their lives. These programs save lives, and we will continue to fight for them.
But events in 2025 made something painfully clear: federal programs alone cannot be the only plan.
Since January 2025, we’ve watched a steady stream of political attacks on SNAP—through budget cuts, expanded work requirements, and rhetoric that treats hunger as a personal failure rather than a systemic one. At the same time, our long-standing work with the Community Partnership Group (CPG), and our own lived experiences have been telling us the same thing: people are already struggling to get enough food, even with SNAP.
Then came the government shutdown in late 2025.
Parker: As I sat with the reality of what could happen if SNAP benefits truly weren’t administered, I found myself asking a very simple question: What are people going to do? I began searching for organizations in my hometown of Peoria, IL, that could provide food at scale outside of food banks or small, short-term local efforts. And I kept hitting a wall. The truth is, we do not have many systems in place to feed people outside of federal programs. If SNAP really ended, there was no backup plan.
That moment forced a reckoning for Teon Hayes and me who lead our food assistance work, and honestly, our entire team.
It became clear just how commodified our food systems have become and how dependent we are on institutions and markets that can disappear or fail us overnight. And it made me realize that we have lost touch with something our ancestors understood deeply: food sovereignty. The ability to feed ourselves and one another, no matter what.
I think often about conversations I had as a child with my grandmothers. I asked them what it was like growing up during the Great Depression. Both of them said something similar: they couldn’t really tell the difference.
Both of my grandmothers were Black, growing up under the Black Codes and Jim Crow, living in poverty long before the Great Depression ever had its name. Hardship was already a reality. But they told me this: no matter what was happening around them, our people knew how to survive. Farming, bartering, cooking, canning, sharing food, and feeding one another. These were not hobbies or trends—they were collective skills passed down, refined, and relied on.
While the rest of the country was learning how to survive the Great Depression, our ancestors already had the code.
That history matters right now.
What this moment is calling us to do is remember. To return to the ways our communities have always cared for one another. To build food systems that are rooted in people, not politics. To recognize that while federal programs like SNAP and WIC must be protected and strengthened, they cannot be the only answer.
Here on CLASP’s Public Benefits Justice Team, we are expanding how we think about food assistance—not because SNAP doesn’t matter, but because people matter more. We are looking beyond federal programs to uplift community-led solutions, local and state initiatives, and the work that community-based organizations have been doing for generations. We see our role as learners and connectors—listening to what’s already working, sharing information, and helping connect community power to policymaking power.
Ensuring that everyone eats feels urgent, but it also feels possible. Our ancestors showed us how. They fed one another through conditions far worse than this. They survived because they had each other.
This is a call to remember. To reconnect. And to build food systems that can carry us through yet another moment—together.
To learn more about why we’re expanding our approach to food assistance, what food resources are available to communities right now, and how this work is playing out on the ground, click here to read our full paper about this new approach, which includes a real-life example from Peoria—because if it plays in Peoria, it can play anywhere.
By Teon Hayes and Parker Gilkesson Davis
Threats to SNAP other food assistance programs reveal the urgent need for a broader food sovereignty approach to solving hunger. The authors promote community power, focus on local food systems, and sustained targeted investment. The brief highlights how Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities have long fed themselves despite disinvestment, land theft, and policy barriers. The brief takes a look at Peoria, Illinois, as a prime example, showing both the strengths and limitations of local response. Local communities can bridge gaps, but policymakers must act to ensure that everyone can access proper nutrition and thrive.
CLASP joined an amicus brief filed with the United States Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara challenging Executive Order 14160, which seeks to end birthright citizenship. The brief outlines the immediate and long-term harms to babies and children if birthright citizenship is eliminated. It was co-authored by Persyn Law & Policy on behalf of First Focus on Children, CLASP, Children Now, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, and child health and development experts.
By Parker Gilkesson Davis
CLASP’s Parker Gilkesson Davis was featured on an episode of “Say That With Love,” a podcast from the National Black Child Development Institute, for a conversation with Dr. Leah Austin about food, health, and family well-being. In the episode, Parker discusses how healthy eating can be accessible and affirming rather than restrictive, and reflects on the broader connections between nutrition, care, and supporting children and families. The conversation highlights practical and values-driven ways to think about nourishment and community wellness.
Watch the full episode below:
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 Grace Segers
[EXCERPT]
“We’re not going to be able to quantify the harm that is going to happen, because we’ve now lost this large piece of data, and there is no other data set and collection of data that reaches this far and this wide,” said Parker Gilkesson Davis, senior policy analyst for the Center on Law and Social Policy. “A lot of people are going to become invisible, and their plight is going to become invisible.… There will be people experiencing hunger in America, and we would have no idea, and no idea how to serve them.”
Read the full article from The New Republic.
By Ashley Burnside and Jesse Fairbanks
Michael and Susan Dell recently announced a $6.25 billion donation to the new “Trump Accounts” for children up to age 10 living in zip codes with median incomes of under $150,000. Media outlets have heralded the Dell family’s generosity, but this donation—and Trump Accounts generally—won’t end wealth inequality for families with low incomes.
Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts seeded with $1,000 from the federal government for babies born between 2025 and 2028. Families are eligible regardless of their income, but children must have a Social Security number. Families or employers can invest up to $5,000 per year, and government entities and nonprofits can make additional contributions. At eighteen, the child can make withdrawals for expenses like college tuition or a down payment on a house. Unlike 529 savings accounts, money from Trump Accounts is taxable, as are contributions.
This policy sounds promising because it symbolizes an investment in America’s children. However, Trump Accounts effectively make the rich richer and widen wealth gaps.
Apart from the initial $1,000, the federal government makes no additional contributions to the accounts. Families with low-wage jobs will be less likely to work for an employer that offers up to $2,500 in annual contributions because these employers generally offer fewer benefits. These families may also struggle to invest in the accounts personally, while higher-income families—or their relatives such as grandparents with generational wealth—can take advantage of this option.
When children turn 18, families who contributed the annual maximum could have an account of more than $190,000, while children who only received the initial $1,000 could have an account as low as $4,000. Young adults with the means to leave the account untouched because of other savings can allow their Trump Account to mature as a traditional individual retirement account, furthering the wealth divide. These children could turn $190,000 in their Trump Account into an estimated $4.8 million by the time they’re 60.
The Dells’ contribution is income-targeted geographically, in that only children living in counties with a median income below $150,000 will receive the $250. Their donation will miss families with low incomes who live in wealthy areas. Furthermore, without additional investment, the small contribution of $250 could grow to just $450-$900 depending on the child’s age. That’s not generational wealth. Future donors could better target their donations by setting a lower qualifying median income threshold to provide a larger one-time contribution.
Trump Accounts are not designed to help families with low incomes build wealth. The accounts don’t allow philanthropic and government donors to income-target by picking recipients based on family income. Thus, donors like the Dell family who are dedicated to narrowing wealth gaps must use imperfect geographic measures to target their contributions. The Dell’s donation could have better served children without wealth if federal guidance allowed them to provide a greater one-time investment to families with extremely low incomes. Federal guidance could also allow contributions to certain populations that face economic barriers, such as foster youth.
Connecticut’s state baby bond program is a promising example of income-targeting. Babies there born on or after July 1, 2023, and eligible for Medicaid are automatically enrolled in a state-managed trust fund that’s seeded up to $3,200. Because a child must receive Medicaid to be eligible, the program is income-targeted. State officials estimate over 15,000 children are enrolled annually and set up to receive $11,000 to $24,000 as young adults.
Trump Accounts aren’t baby bonds because their goals differ. Baby bonds aspire to reduce wealth gaps, especially between white and Black people living in the U.S., by seeding more money into the accounts of children from families experiencing poverty. Through Trump Accounts, conservative policymakers aim to invest in “a new generation of capitalists” without regard for how the current design might worsen wealth gaps.
It’s promising to see a national, bipartisan conversation about promoting wealth-building for children, but Trump Accounts fail too many children. By design, the Trump Administration has limited the ability of private and public donors to target their investments by family income. Donors committed to closing wealth gaps should instead consider investing in state and local initiatives with positive outcomes for children that allow for precise income-targeting, such as New Mexico’s baby bonds program or local guaranteed income pilots. To create a country where all children have generational wealth, lawmakers and donors need to invest in cash programs that effectively target families based on income and wealth.
Join the United Planning Organization (UPO) for a policy forum on how TANF cash assistance supports DC families, the harm of this year’s planned cuts, and strategies to protect children. CLASP’s Ashley Burnside will discuss DC TANF’s history, past improvements, and how recent changes could push 15,000 children deeper into poverty.
This event has already happened. To learn more about this issue in the District of Columbia, click here.