Trump cuts threaten Americans' safety net just as more are expected to need it

Boston Globe

28-04-2025

Popular aid programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, could also face cutbacks as Republicans in Congress look to pay for promised tax cuts. The president is expected to detail his plans for such programs soon as part of his fiscal 2026 budget proposal.
'There are changes coming from multiple directions at once, but all of which have the real possibility of affecting families in general and, in the worst-case scenario of how they might converge, having potentially really devastating financial effects for families,' said Megan Curran, director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.
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The moves come just as tariffs, and the uncertainty around them, stoke pessimism about the outlook for the US economy. So far, unemployment remains low and retail sales healthy.
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But if prices rise and joblessness increases, as many economists expect, more Americans will seek out the country's patchwork system of private and public initiatives aimed at alleviating hardship and cushioning the economy from a protracted downturn.
President Trump is known to vacillate frequently on the specifics of his policy agenda, and Republican lawmakers are still negotiating the details of their budget package. But the emerging changes, paired with anticipated tariff-related price hikes, portend higher costs for Americans and fewer resources for them to fall back on, said Curran and other analysts.
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
At the North Texas Food Bank, president Trisha Cunningham is trying to manage the fallout of a rapidly shifting policy landscape in Washington. That includes cuts to funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, a US Department of Agriculture initiative that supports the purchase of local products for food banks.
The North Texas Food Bank, a network of some 500 agencies and organizations in Dallas and surrounding counties, will now have to figure out how to cope without the roughly $9 million Cunningham expected from the program in the coming months.
The tariffs themselves are also problematic, she said, citing concerns that any further increases in grocery prices could spur more people to seek food assistance when pantries are already contending with high demand from years of inflation.
All told, Cunningham foresees a situation she calls 'ugly.'
'We're very concerned about the tariffs and what that's going to mean for the consumer, for the retailers, for us,' she said. 'That dollar is not going to go as far as it has if we're having to purchase more food to try to fill some of the delta of the government.'
The Trump administration also slashed funding for a separate, but similar program known as Local Food for Schools, which assists schools and child care facilities with food purchases.
In a statement, the USDA said that the Biden administration had 'inflated' statutory programs 'without any plans for long-term solutions, and even in 2024, used the pandemic as a reason to make funding announcements.'
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'While the pandemic is over, USDA has not and will not lose focus on its core mission of strengthening food security, supporting agricultural markets and ensuring access to nutritious foods,' said a USDA spokesperson, adding that other funds and programs to support feeding efforts remain available.
Community organizations are already feeling the impact of reduced federal support, according to the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book, which compiles economic anecdotes from across the country.
'Cuts to federal grants and subsidies along with declines in philanthropic donations caused gaps in services provided by many community organizations,' the report said.
Meanwhile in Congress, Republicans are seeking to deliver trillions of dollars in new and extended tax cuts — a priority of Trump's — alongside spending cuts demanded by conservatives. Republicans are working on a package that would slash taxes by up to $5.3 trillion over a decade.
Conservative hardliners are pushing for trillions of dollars in offsetting spending cuts over the next decade. Analysts say that is likely to require cuts to Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for lower-income Americans, as well as SNAP — formerly known as food stamps — and other social programs with millions of beneficiaries.
But some moderate Republicans have warned against cuts to the programs. It's also not clear what will ultimately pass Congress given Republicans' thin majorities in both chambers.
Programs such as SNAP act as so-called automatic stabilizers during economic slowdowns, providing support to Americans as more become eligible for the benefits when their incomes fall.
But America's safety net has long been fragile. Recipiency rates for unemployment insurance, or the share of unemployed individuals who receive benefits, have declined in most states in recent decades.
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Automatic stabilizers don't just help those directly receiving the benefits. An analysis by the Government Accountability Office in 2023 found they reduce the 'detrimental effects' of economic downturns and prevent the overall economy from getting worse.
Americans are already feeling more anxious, surveys show. Nearly a third of households expect to be in a worse financial situation a year from now as costs accelerate and job prospects worsen, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey showed. Low-income households in particular are under financial strain after years of high inflation.
Layoffs are generally low, outside of the thousands of workers caught in federal cost-saving efforts and related spillovers, but many employers have slowed hiring or paused it altogether. Such a slowdown suggests out-of-work Americans will find it increasingly difficult to find employment.
The administration broadly argues its cuts are necessary to curtail wasteful federal spending, reduce a ballooning national deficit and make government operations more efficient.
The federal workforce reductions and efficiency efforts include plans to slash about 7,000 jobs at the Social Security Administration, which delivers benefits to millions of seniors and disabled Americans.
In mid-April, the whole staff of the group tasked with coordinating federal housing aid to cities was put on leave. And 10,000 workers at the US Department of Health and Human Services were cut earlier in the month.
Among them were roughly two dozen staffers at the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, said Mark Wolfe, executive director at the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. That program provides states with funding that is used to help low-income families pay heating and cooling bills, buy equipment for their homes and more.
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A bipartisan group of senators said the staff terminations 'threaten to devastate' the program and could undermine the agency's ability to disburse the funding. Wolfe echoed those concerns.
'It's not clear whether this is one part of an agenda to scale back the social services safety net in the United States,' Wolfe said. 'Because if that is the plan, they are succeeding.'
HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
With austerity the dominant posture in Washington currently, it's also unclear whether policymakers would be willing to step in with the kind of large-scale aid they doled out to American businesses and households during the COVID-19 pandemic should another economic downturn emerge.
Skanda Amarnath, executive director at Employ America, said Trump in his second presidential term has taken a largely unilateral approach to policy making, which would likely make it all the harder for lawmakers to coalesce around any economic support.
'This is not an approach that lends itself to protecting people from unintentional fallout,' he said.