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This statement can be attributed to Isha Weerasinghe, Director of Public Benefits Justice at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Washington, D.C., July 1, 2025—The budget reconciliation bill passed today by the Senate on a vote of 51-50, with Vice-President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, will cause significant harm to millions of children and families, all for the sake of providing more tax breaks for the wealthy. The bill includes substantially more funds to accelerate the devastating immigration enforcement actions that are tearing families apart and undermining the safety and well-being of vulnerable children, including those who are U.S. citizens and asylum seekers.

The Senate’s version of the bill contains deeper cuts to Medicaid than the version passed by the House last month, excludes many lawfully present immigrants from eligibility, and expands the House’s work requirement to include some parents, which will cause millions more people to lose health insurance. This means that children and seniors, along with millions of middle-class and working families, people who need long-term care, and those who live in nursing homes will be at risk of losing their health insurance. An estimated 17 million people will lose health insurance, and 8 million people will be at risk for losing food assistance–in the same bill that gives tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. 

In addition to these harmful Medicaid cuts, the bill also adds dangerous provisions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that will restrict access, tighten eligibility, and shift major costs from the federal government to states, potentially forcing them to end their SNAP programs entirely. This represents a major threat to the health care and food assistance that millions of families depend on for their health, well-being, and stability. The bill also denies immigrants key federal benefits like Medicaid and SNAP that they contribute to, and creates barriers for them to apply for legal or permanent status by raising fees.  

The bill will also cut off access to the Child Tax Credit for an estimated 2.6 million U.S. citizen children simply because their only caregiver(s) lack a Social Security number. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates that, under this bill, the wealthiest households in the country will see an average tax cut of about $65,000, while the households with the lowest incomes will only receive an average tax cut of $110. This disparity is particularly stark, given that this bill does nothing to support the needs of families with low incomes who are especially harmed by the lack of affordable child care and increased cost of living. 

The Senate bill also affects college affordability and the financial well-being of students by limiting student loans for programs and eliminating repayment options for new borrowers facing economic hardship or unemployment. The bill would also restrict access to Pell Grants for over 4.4 million students, making it harder for students with low incomes to cover costs and finish their programs. 

The bill will now go to the House, whose leadership has made it clear that they will push it through as quickly as possible to meet a self-imposed July 4th deadline. Given the disregard for children, workers, immigrants, and families shown in the House’s reconciliation bill, provisions targeting the most vulnerable are likely to remain intact. 

Like the House bill, the Senate’s version will harm the health, security, and well-being of communities across the country. CLASP urges House lawmakers to reject this damaging bill and focus on policies that prioritize workers, children, and families over billionaires.

By Teon Hayes

Black women in America are more than three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their White, Latina, and Asian counterparts—a devastating disparity rooted in this country’s systemic failures.1 Even more troubling, this heightened risk persists regardless of income or education, proving that both individual and systemic racism is the driving force behind these outcomes. No matter how “successful” a Black woman may be, she is still more likely to lose her life during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period. 

As a Black woman who recently gave birth, I know this fear intimately. It was terrifying to know that there were forces far beyond my control that could have a fatal impact on both me and my son. No one should have to carry that fear while preparing to bring new life into the world. This stark statistic has become a rallying cry in health equity circles, sparking overdue attention to racism in maternal care. But one critical factor remains overlooked in too many of these conversations: food insecurity. 

The nation’s food system is facing serious threats. In just the past year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ended funding for several local and regional food programs that helped bring fresh, affordable food to communities in need. Current budget reconciliation proposals include hundreds of billions in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. At the same time, the President’s budget for fiscal year 2026 calls for deep cuts to WIC, a vital source of nutrition support for pregnant women, infants, and young children. 

These attacks on the nation’s food system come amid rising living costs and in the midst of a deepening Black maternal health crisis. If this trajectory continues, it will further impact the communities already facing the highest maternal mortality rates and could drive those numbers even higher. 

Food insecurity or the lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life is not just a symptom of poverty; it’s a silent force exacerbating the Black maternal health crisis. In many Black and historically underfunded communities, expecting mothers are navigating pregnancy while skipping meals, stretching limited food supplies, or relying on corner stores with few healthy options. 

Poor nutrition during pregnancy is linked to high blood pressure, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, low birth weight, and complications during delivery. These are not rare or abstract conditions; rather, they’re some of the most common contributors to maternal death in the United States. When an expecting mother can’t access fresh fruits, vegetables, or protein-rich foods, she’s more vulnerable to a fatal outcome. These health risks are compounded by broader systemic inequities that shape where and how people live. The barriers to good nutrition and safe pregnancies are not just medical; they are rooted in longstanding structural inequities. 

Food deserts don’t appear by accident. They are the result of decades of redlining, disinvestment, and discriminatory policies that have stripped Black neighborhoods of grocery stores, public transit, health services, and economic opportunity. One out of every five Black households is situated in a food desert. Many of the same communities where food insecurity is highest are also maternity care deserts. These are areas that do not have access to birthing hospitals, birth centers that offer obstetric care, or obstetric providers. This double bind means Black women are more likely to experience poor nutrition and receive substandard prenatal care.  

That’s why protecting and strengthening nutrition programs is critical. Policymakers must take a holistic view and consider the ripple effects these decisions will have on communities. Undermining the nation’s food system will only widen racial inequities and may further increase Black maternal mortality rates. These outcomes aren’t the result of individual failures—they reflect systemic ones. Addressing food insecurity requires fully funding and restructuring the food system and maternal care infrastructure to ensure every Black birthing person has consistent access to nutritious food, while also dismantling inherently racist policies that restrict access and deepen health inequities. 

This multifaceted approach should include but not limited to: 

If we’re serious about ending the Black maternal mortality crisis, we have to think beyond hospital walls. A mother’s health starts long before labor. It begins with the food on her plate, the safety of her neighborhood, and the policies that shape her access to care.

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1  CLASP recognizes that people of all genders can be pregnant and give birth. Some use the terms “birthing people” and “pregnant people” to capture this. In most cases, we have chosen to use “women” to be consistent with the terminology used in the statistics throughout this piece.  

By Juan Carlos Gomez

Families are already struggling with higher costs of living, and the Senate’s budget reconciliation bill will only increase the costs of health care, food, and everyday necessities. The bill’s text affirms that at its core, this is legislation that will drain money from the families with the lowest incomes in order to benefit the wealthy. 

Millions Could Lose Health Care, Food Assistance, and Economic Stability

The bill would make the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history, dismantling the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace that make it effective in providing affordable health coverage and many free health care services to millions. The proposed language in the Senate makes even deeper cuts to Medicaid and, in total, could cause up to 16 million people to become uninsured. These cuts will cause widespread harm and impact essential workers, like child care providers, who rely on Medicaid due to a lack of access to benefits and low-paying jobs. When Congress tried to repeal the ACA in 2017, they failed because it was deeply unpopular and people understood that weakening the Marketplace would leave millions without affordable health coverage.

Burdensome Work Requirements Are Cuts by Another Name

Additionally, the drastic cuts to SNAP could leave over 8 million people with little to no food assistance, harming our economy. Every dollar that goes to SNAP results in up to $1.80 in economic ripple effects that benefit farmers, grocery stores, truck drivers, payment processors, food manufacturers, and others as the funds circulate in the local economy. Less funding for SNAP means families are spending less, impacting more than 250,000 SNAP-authorized retailers nationwide.

The House-passed bill and Senate proposal would create the first mandate for states to implement work requirements in Medicaid programs and make existing SNAP work requirements even more burdensome. Decades of research show that work requirements don’t increase stable employment or economic security. Instead, they lead to large drops in program participation by creating complex, burdensome paperwork that eligible people often can’t navigate. This causes people to lose benefits not because they’re ineligible, but because the system becomes too difficult to access. These policies are especially harmful to people in low-wage jobs, caregivers, and those with health conditions, many of whom already face systemic barriers like discrimination, lack of child care, or unreliable transportation. Work requirements are simply cuts to life-saving programs under a different name.

Millions of Children and Families Will be Barred From Economic Supports

While the Senate bill increases the maximum Child Tax Credit (CTC) to $2,200 per child, it does not make the credit fully available to families with little to no earnings. Under the Senate bill, 17 million children will continue to be left out of receiving the full CTC. Additionally, families that do not have at least one parent with a Social Security number would be barred from accessing the CTC under the Senate bill. This would restrict access to the CTC for 2.6 million citizen children. 

The bill would make the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) more difficult to claim for 17 million families with low to moderate incomes by adding a burdensome pre-certification requirement. This would create needless red tape and stress for families with children as they file to claim the EITC. Lawmakers have decreased funding and staffing for the IRS, meaning the agency will have less capacity to provide adequate customer support to parents as they navigate this new policy.

Attacks on Immigrant Communities Will Have Ripple Effects for All Families

Undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for the CTC, Medicaid, Medicare, Affordable Care Act coverage, and SNAP. This legislation bars immigrants who are primarily authorized for humanitarian reasons to be in the United States, like refugees, asylees, and domestic violence survivors, from accessing these programs; in some cases, even green card holders could be blocked. These policies will impact both adults and children: approximately 40 percent of individuals granted refugee status and asylum in FY23 were children.

On top of further limiting immigrant access to essential benefits, this legislation increases funding for mass deportation. Immigrants–including those with authorization–and U.S. citizens alike have been subject to immigration enforcement actions without due process. Over 5 million children have at least one undocumented parent they are at risk of being separated from, and 2.6 million citizen children in the U.S. have only an undocumented parent(s) and are at risk of being left with no one to care for them due to their parent’s detention or deportation. As the Trump Administration continues to strip immigrants of their legal statuses and eligibility for support, the number of children who are harmed by immigration enforcement will grow, the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens. Fears of immigration enforcement will also cause a chilling effect even among immigrants who qualify for food and health insurance assistance. They will disenroll or not enroll in these lifesaving programs, impacting access for their children and their well-being.

Tax Breaks for the Wealthy Reduce Funding That Supports Children and Families

This bill centers wealthy families by offering tax breaks for the rich while cutting and eliminating essential programs that meet the needs of families. These significant tax breaks mean less revenue to support programs that families rely on and undermine their basic needs. Decisions about investments in programs will come with challenging tradeoffs and will, without a doubt, leave families and children, especially those with the lowest incomes, out to dry. Programs like child care, Head Start, and services for people with disabilities will suffer, and positive progress will be lost. 

States and Our Health Care System Will Bear the Burden as Federal Government Withdraws Support

Children and families’ needs for health care and food do not go away just because the federal government chooses not to fund them. Instead, states and local governments–which already have strained budgets–will have to figure out how to implement new, burdensome provisions of the bill and deal with cuts to funding in order to support their residents by shifting costs from other important needs or forcing families off of Medicaid, SNAP, and other essential programs. This bill creates impossible situations for states, forcing them to make decisions about which basic needs they are able to support for the very same families. 

As millions of people lose health insurance, the cost of uncompensated care skyrocket, causing tremendous strain on our health care system. This, in turn, could cause hospitals and health care centers to shutter services or close altogether. This will be especially devastating for rural communities where children and families already face barriers to accessible health care, and over 4 in 10 hospitals are already losing money. 

The Budget Reconciliation Bill Sets Students, Workers, Children, and Families Up to Fail

Students Will Likely Experience Increased Financial Pressure 

Education-related cuts include severe restrictions on federal student aid for students with low incomes at a time when many students already struggle with the increasing cost of pursuing a college degree. Nearly 4.4 million Pell Grant recipients would see their award amounts reduced, and new student loan borrowers would be forced to make larger payments even if they are unemployed or struggling to pay bills. These provisions will drive more borrowers into defaulting on their loans and, as a result, have their CTC and EITC refunds seized. For universities, these restrictions would compound through states being potentially forced to cut education spending to make up for the loss of federal funding for health care and other social services. Institutions would also be forced to no longer offer access to federal student loans, close certain academic programs, or shutter their campuses due to the bill requiring colleges to pay a percentage of unpaid debt.

Workers Face Pay Cuts, Weakened Unions, and Job Insecurity

Workers will see lower wages with rising costs, including for utilities, food, and other necessities in the household. With the continued attacks on unions, all workers face an increase in job security and risk their health and safety at the workplace. And while civil servants have already faced numerous challenges this year due to rounds of layoffs, this bill would cut take-home pay for new civil servants while undermining their workplace rights and limiting federal labor unions’ ability to protect their members. 

On top of reducing take-home pay for civil workers, this bill also places a 10 percent tax on labor unions for solely existing in the workplace. Under this bill, it will be increasingly challenging for employees to contest unlawful dismissals or discrimination, and the financial repercussions will be considerably greater for workers aiming to maintain their rights. These changes will affect federal agencies’ ability to retain and recruit workers while placing additional financial burdens on federal workers, their families, and their children.

Young Children and Families Will Not Have Access to Necessary Child Care and Early Education Support

While a child care crisis persists in our country, this bill does nothing to support access to affordable and accessible child care for children and families. While the bill includes a number of tax incentives and credits related to child care, it does not address the true needs of children and families. In fact, even these tax provisions would not benefit families with low incomes, as they are targeted at employers, higher-income jobs, and families with tax liability. It puts no effort into making child care more affordable for the children and families who need it most or supporting the undervalued and underpaid child care workforce. 

Resources on budget reconciliation:

By Parker Gilkesson Davis

In honor of the Juneteenth holiday, this brief looks at the history of agricultural injustice experienced by Black and immigrant farm workers and offers bold policy ideas that center the dignity, equity, and value of all historically marginalized communities. 

>> Read the full brief here

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

Washington, D.C., June 5, 2025—Late last week, President Trump sent details of his 2026 budget proposal to Congress. This document makes no secret of Trump’s disregard for children, families, immigrants, and workers, all of whom would be grievously harmed by his proposal. 

Trump’s proposed budget slashes $12 billion from federal education programs; $5 billion from agriculture programs and initiatives; $4.6 billion from the Department of Labor (representing more than a third of the department’s total budget); and more than $60 billion from health, housing, and community development work, including $1.1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The proposed budget would also more than double funding for the Department of Homeland Security, in order to fund mass deportation and family separations. 

This draconian budget would harm millions of people who are already forced to live on the margins. Among those who would be adversely affected by these cuts are students with low incomes trying to earn a degree, people who rely on housing choice vouchers or public housing for shelter, immigrant families who will be driven even further into the shadows, workers seeking to unionize for fair wages, and working families who need affordable child care.  

It’s also notable that funding cuts to the IRS will greatly reduce the agency’s capacity to ensure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share of taxes. 

Trump’s proposed budget clearly shows that his administration’s main priorities are attacking diversity, funding massive tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, and laying waste to the services, initiatives, and programs that have enriched the lives of Americans for generations. This budget, coupled with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the reconciliation bill, will deepen poverty and exacerbate inequality. CLASP calls on Congress to reject the Trump budget and support policies that truly support children, families, and communities across the country. 

June 4, 2025, Washington, D.C. – Last July, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) voluntarily recognized CLASP Workers United, a new employee union represented by Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), Local 2. On May 23, 2025, CLASP Workers United and CLASP ratified their first-ever collective bargaining agreement, which was effective immediately and covers the next 24 months.

The agreement addressed the bargaining unit’s rights and protections, hiring processes, pay scale, leave policy, and workplace disputes, among other provisions.

“With this contract, our goal was to set a strong foundation for the negotiating team that will come to the table two years from now. We absolutely achieved that goal,” said Jesse Fairbanks, CLASP Workers United’s President, “We secured several systemic changes in this contract that can be built upon by future members of our union.”

“I am proud of management and staff for coming together on a collaboratively developed agreement rooted in mutual respect and shared values. It embodies our values, codifies fair labor and compensation practices, reinforces clear promotion pathways, and embraces equity and transparency,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, CLASP’s new president and executive director. “This agreement strengthens both our internal culture and external impact.”

In particular, the agreement bolsters compensation and workplace practices by:

“We are pleased to welcome the employees at CLASP into the OPEIU Local 2 family. Among other things, I was impressed with the bargaining team’s unwavering dedication to ensuring that the lowest-paid employees were elevated to a living wage. This speaks highly of their commitment to the principles of the labor movement as well as the principles that brought them to CLASP employment,” said Sarah Levesque, Secretary-Treasurer, OPEIU, Local 2.

# # # #

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty organization advancing policy solutions for people with low incomes. Because poverty in America is inextricably tied to systemic racism, CLASP focuses its policy and advocacy efforts for economic and racial justice on addressing systemic racism as the primary cause of poverty for communities of color.

CLASP Workers United (CWU) unionized in 2024 as a member of OPEIU Local 2. Our union aims to ensure a balance of institutional power between CLASP management and its workers through increased transparency and shared decision-making. We make space for workers at CLASP to step into their people power and demand organizational change.

By Ashley Burnside

Lawmakers are proposing dangerous cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest people and corporations. These proposed changes could result in up to 11 million people losing some, or all, of their SNAP food benefits; increased food hardship; and fewer dollars being spent in grocery stores in our local economies. Disabled people will be hurt by these proposed policy changes, despite so-called exemptions being in place.  

SNAP provides monthly food benefits to individuals and families with low incomes and is one of our nation’s most effective anti-hunger public programs. It is also an important benefit for people with disabilities. Ten percent of the program’s non-elderly recipients identified as having a disability in 2023, and disabled people are more likely to face food insecurity. But SNAP can be hard to access for disabled people, and a time limit further restricts access for recipients known as “able-bodied adults without dependents,” or ABAWDs.  

Under current law, ABAWDs can only access SNAP for three months in a three-year period unless they are working for at least 20 hours per week. Lawmakers have created exceptions for areas with high unemployment rates and where time limit waivers are in place. SNAP benefits are cut off after three months even if recipients are still experiencing food insecurity and face barriers to obtaining employment.  

Lawmakers have proposed expanding the population that would fall under the ABAWD category, and who would therefore need to meet this work requirement, to include parents with children ages 7 and older and older adults ages 55 to 64. Parents with young children and older adults would be forced to work many hours per week or risk losing the food benefits that help them afford groceries each month. In addition, the proposal would significantly restrict state flexibility by limiting the United States Department of Agriculture’s ability to approve waivers only to areas with unemployment rates over 10 percent, and by reducing the allowable exempt population from the time limit policy from 8 percent to just 1 percent. These changes would make it much harder for states to protect vulnerable populations — including people with disabilities who may not be formally exempt but still face significant barriers to meeting work requirements. 

The ABAWD acronym implies that only able-bodied adults must meet the work requirement or face a time limit. But people with disabilities can also be negatively impacted by this policy because it can be challenging for them to prove they have a qualifying disability that prevents them from working and meeting the SNAP work requirement.   

SNAP policy requires recipients to be “physically or mentally unfit for employment” to qualify for an exemption from the time limit. The federal regulatory language for being “unfit” requires states to exempt people who:   

1. receive public or private disability benefits; 

2. are perceived as obviously “unfit” for employment by the program caseworker at the state agency; or 

3. have documentation from a qualifying medical professional stating they are “unfit” for employment.  

Each of these criteria can be challenging for people with disabilities to meet for the following reasons:   

1. Applying for and receiving disability benefits, such as Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance, is a long and cumbersome process. The application to receive disability benefits can take many months and can require a lawyer. In addition, the Social Security Administration is understaffed and underfunded, causing delays and customer service hiccups, and likely even more delays in the coming months. Even if someone is considered “disabled enough” to qualify for disability benefits, they may not be able to make it through the challenging application process to ultimately receive them.

2. A person may not be deemed “disabled enough” to qualify for an exemption from the SNAP work requirement and time limit, depending on a caseworker’s perceptions, stereotypes, and awareness of disabilities and chronic illnesses. Caseworkers may be biased by their lack of understanding of disabilities and how they function. This is especially true if the person has an invisible disability, like chronic pain or autism spectrum disorder, which is harder for others to observe. The caseworker’s perceptions may also be biased based on the recipient’s other identities, including race and gender. For example, caseworkers may minimize a Black applicant’s reported pain more than someone who is white due to their internal biases.

3. Accessing medical documentation proving your disability for an exemption from SNAP time limits can be challenging. Securing medical documentation of your disability requires numerous health appointments, access to transportation, money to afford the documentation, and health insurance. If you have a chronic illness, like Long COVID, it can be harder to secure a diagnosis from a medical provider and may require getting an appointment at a specialty clinic, which may have a months’ long waitlist. In addition, people with invisible disabilities and illnesses may face bias from medical providers who don’t believe their reported symptoms of pain. Research shows that women and people of color are more likely to face bias and skepticism from medical providers.  

Recently, Republican lawmakers have claimed that the new expansions to SNAP work requirements will not affect individuals with disabilities. However, this is not accurate. In practice, disabled people risk losing food assistance when lawmakers enforce time limits and work requirements, even when exemptions are included for people with disabilities. Many individuals with disabilities face barriers to accessing or proving eligibility for those exemptions, leaving them vulnerable to benefit loss. Work requirements don’t work and will not lead to better economic opportunities or help eradicate food insecurity. Lawmakers should not make these paperwork requirements worse in the SNAP program.   

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

Washington, D.C., May 22, 2025—CLASP is outraged that the U.S. House of Representatives voted today to pass its reconciliation bill. This bill guts health care, restricts access to food, sacrifices our higher education system, and punishes immigrant families, all to provide more tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations. The legislation will now go to the Senate, where further changes are expected to be made.

The reconciliation bill contains numerous policies that will make life even more difficult for millions of children, families, and people living on the margins. Cuts to essential benefit programs will cause disproportionate hardship to communities of color, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, U.S. citizen children with one or more undocumented parents, and college students with low incomes. If signed into law, states across the country will see costs shift to them as the federal government pulls back funding for important programs. This will negatively impact state budgets and force states to push people off Medicaid, SNAP, and end other public services.

Proposed changes to the Child Tax Credit could lead to an estimated 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents no longer benefiting from this credit. Medicaid could see $715 billion in cuts, and an estimated 13.7 million people are at risk of losing health insurance. The new provisions to SNAP would cut nearly $300 billion from the program—marking the largest reduction in its history—meaning 11 million adults and children may receive less food assistance or lose it entirely. A proposed increase of $45 billion in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts millions of mixed-status immigrant families at risk of being detained and deported as part of the administration’s devastating mass deportation plan. And education-related cuts include severe restrictions on federal student aid for students with low incomes.

These numbers only include people who will be directly harmed by funding cuts. They don’t account for the local economies that will be destabilized by residents having to choose between buying groceries or paying rent, missing work out of fear of immigration raids, or forgoing needed health care because they are no longer covered by Medicaid or afraid to access it even if they are eligible.

Millions of families will lose their health care, access to food, and the Child Tax Credit if this bill is passed into law, and more immigrant children and families will suffer long-term harm. CLASP is opposed to this bill and calls on the Senate to do everything it can to stop this bill from becoming law.

CLASP’s budget reconciliation blog series examines the policies put forward that have particular resonance for children, families, and communities with low incomes. The series can be found here.

May 21 | Ashley Burnside will be a panelist on “Restoring Re-Entry Support: Lifting Texas’ TANF Ban for Those Formerly Incarcerated,” an online conversation convened by What We All Deserve the history of TANF bans for previously incarcerated people, and why lifting the ban is so crucial.

By Ashley Burnside

As Congress works to advance the proposed budget reconciliation bill of 2025, CLASP’s series “The 2025 Budget Reconciliation’s Impact on People with Low Incomes” will examine the policies put forward that have particular resonance for children, families, and communities with low incomes. This is the fifth blog in the series.

On May 13-14, the House Ways and Means Committee met to mark up its portion of the reconciliation bill. The tax package that passed in 2017, which the reconciliation bill seeks to extend, was skewed to the wealthiest individuals and widened the racial wealth gap. Congressional leadership is using the same playbook now. The proposed tax package will continue to widen inequality by benefiting the wealthiest people and corporations by cutting critical health and nutrition programs that families rely on. It will also enforce harmful restrictions for families who file taxes with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), despite the fact that ITIN filers pay taxes and contribute substantially to our nation’s economy. No families should be left out of important tax credits simply because they don’t have a Social Security number.

Below, we take a closer look at some particularly harmful parts of the proposed bill.

CTC and Immigrant Children

The committee is considering changing the Child Tax Credit (CTC) so that only households where every member has a Social Security number would be eligible for the credit. In families where even just one parent has an ITIN, otherwise eligible children would no longer receive the CTC. This would restrict access to an estimated  4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The bill also permanently restricts children who don’t have Social Security numbers from accessing the CTC, which is estimated to impact 1 million children. 

All families who file a tax return and are otherwise eligible should be able to get the CTC, regardless of their immigration status. People with ITINs pay federal taxes — that’s why they have an ITIN number. This provision only perpetuates the myth that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $59.4 billion in federal taxes and $37.3 billion in state and local taxes, totaling $96.7 billion. And in 40 states, undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households in the state.

CTC Leaves Behind Too Many Children

Policymakers have proposed raising the maximum CTC amount to $2,500 per child from tax years 2025 through 2028 and adjusting it to inflation. However, this will not address the equity gap in the CTC or most effectively reduce child poverty because children in families with very low incomes will continue to be left out of getting the full credit.

An estimated 17 million children don’t get the full CTC because their families don’t have high enough incomes. These children are disproportionately likely to be Black and Latino due to structural racism embedded within our nation’s labor market. In addition, 30 percent of children living in rural communities were not eligible for the full CTC because their families’ income was too low. If the maximum credit increases to $2,500 per child, an estimated 20 million children would not get the full credit.

Lawmakers should prioritize changes to the CTC that make the credit fully refundable and available to families with little to no earnings in the reconciliation package. This would be the most effective way to reduce child poverty. And there is precedent for bipartisan support for these reforms: Under last year’s Wyden-Smith proposal, lawmakers reached an agreement on CTC reforms that would have helped families with low incomes get a higher credit through increasing the credit available to families with low incomes and multiple children, and by removing the refundability cap.

Immigrant Eligibility for Health Programs
Undocumented immigrants are already restricted from coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its premium tax credits, but the proposal goes further to restrict authorized immigrants from affordable health coverage. It establishes new restrictions for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC) for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders or individuals covered by or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), individuals with humanitarian parole, or asylees or those with a pending asylum application.

This is significant because the APTC allows working-class families to better afford health coverage on the ACA Marketplace. Improved parental insurance coverage and health outcomes consistently benefit children in the short- and long-term through improved family health and financial security, just as a lack of health care coverage and the inability to afford medical costs lead to significant burdens on families.

Additionally, the bill strips Medicare coverage for older immigrants who have contributed to the program, often for decades, including TPS and DED holders, refugees, asylees, persons granted withholding of removal, individuals with humanitarian parole, and other immigrants authorized to be in the United States. People work and contribute to programs like Medicare with the expectation that they’ll have access to that support when they are older and retired. Pulling the rug out from under their feet will leave millions of older individuals and individuals with disabilities without coverage.

In addition to losing Medicare coverage and access to the APTC, the bill also strips coverage for lawfully present immigrants to even access the Marketplace coverage if they are under 100 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $32,000 for a family of four. This special exception was created because many lawfully present immigrants with low incomes are ineligible for Medicaid coverage. Removing this exception means that immigrants with low incomes would not be eligible for the ACA or Medicaid, denying them any pathway to affordable health coverage.

“No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” Policies
The bill’s attempt to prohibit tips from taxation is regressive and would reduce federal revenue. Workers who don’t pay federal taxes because they earn too little would largely miss out on the benefits of this proposal. The policy would affect payroll and income taxes by reducing what tipped workers pay into and get out of Social Security in retirement.

For its part, the “no tax on overtime” proposal would fully exclude overtime pay from federal income tax. Workers who earn too little to owe federal income tax—often people who are the lowest-paid and most economically vulnerable—receive no benefit at all, despite often working long or irregular hours. The proposal also assumes that all workers have equal access to overtime, but overtime opportunities are not evenly distributed. Workers in sectors like hospitality, caregiving, and retail, who are disproportionately women and people of color, often face unpredictable schedules and limited access to overtime. A truly worker-centered policy would expand access to overtime protections and provide refundable tax credits that reach workers regardless of income level or tax liability.

A Bill That Benefits the Wealthy
Republicans claim that this bill will help workers and families. But these proposed changes—along with tax breaks that reward ultra-wealthy corporations; proposals to exclude immigrant student borrowers and create financial incentives for students to pursue low-quality education programs; an end to the Direct File program; implementing complicated pre-certification requirements in the Earned Income Tax Credit; and punishing private postgraduate institutions that the Trump Administration considers too “woke”— make it clear that only the wealthy and corporations will truly benefit from the current version of the bill. The child care and paid leave provisions will not reach the people who would most benefit from them, and cannot compare to true investments in child care and paid leave.

If Congress votes to include these proposals in the final reconciliation bill, children and families will be worse off. These proposals will deepen income inequality, make it harder for people to access benefits they contribute to, and reward wealthy Americans and corporations at a time when everyday Americans are struggling.