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Boston Globe
28-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Trump cuts threaten Americans' safety net just as more are expected to need it
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. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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.' Advertisement '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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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.
New York Times
28-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Corrections: Feb. 28, 2025
An article on Tuesday about a young woman who fled religious persecution in Iran and was then caught in the Trump administration's deportation push misspelled the surname of an Iranian-American lawyer. He is Ali Herischi, not Herschi. An article on Thursday about a New Jersey judge dismissing racketeering charges against George Norcross III misstated the position of Mr. Norcross's lawyers on the claims outlined in the indictment. They accepted the facts as presented in the indictment to be true only for the purposes of a pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment; not that the claims were accurate but did not constitute a crime. An article on Thursday about a poverty tracker report for New York City misidentified the research group that analyzed Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposals to reduce child poverty. It was the Urban Institute, not the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. The article also misstated the estimated reduction in child poverty from these proposals. It is about 18 percent for New York State, not 17 percent for New York City. Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions.
New York Times
26-02-2025
- Business
- New York Times
As Poverty Rises in New York City, 1 in 4 Can't Afford Essentials
A quarter of New York City residents don't have enough money for staples like housing and food, and many say they cannot afford to go to the doctor, according to a report that underscores the urgency of an affordability crisis elected officials are struggling to confront. The report, by a research group at Columbia University and Robin Hood, an anti-poverty group, found that the share of New Yorkers in poverty was nearly double the national average in 2023 and had increased by seven percentage points in just two years. The spike is in part due to the expiration of government aid that was expanded during the pandemic. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, appearing to recognize that discontent about the high cost of living could imperil their political futures, have focused their agendas and re-election hopes partly on conveying to voters that they are trying to make New York more affordable. It is a formidable task, said Richard Buery Jr., the chief executive of Robin Hood. The city 'has so much wealth but also so much need,' he said. He added, 'These are entirely human-made problems.' The report is part of a roughly 13-year-study that surveys a representative sample of more about 3,000 households in New York City. Researchers use a different metric than the federal government to measure poverty, taking into account income, noncash support like tax credits and the local cost of living. Under that metric, the poverty threshold for a couple with two children in a rental household in New York City is now $47,190. The study found that 58 percent of New Yorkers, or more than 4.8 million people, were in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line — about $94,000 for a couple with two children or $44,000 for a single adult. Poverty rates among Black, Latino and Asian residents were about twice as high as the rate for white residents, according to the report. Mr. Buery applauded several of the policy proposals in Ms. Hochul's executive budget as a good start to addressing this crisis. The governor has proposed slashing the state's income tax for most residents, and she wants to give expectant mothers on public assistance a $100 monthly benefit during pregnancy, plus $1,200 for those mothers when their child is born. The report found 26 percent of children in New York City, or 420,000 children, live in poverty. The most sweeping proposal would give eligible families a tax break of up to $1,000 per child under the age of 4 or up to $500 for each child aged 4 to 16. Researchers at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University estimated that the tax cut and several other earlier proposals Ms. Hochul supported could reduce child poverty in New York City by about 17 percent. 'It pains me as a mom to think of little kids' stomachs growling while they're in school while they're supposed to be learning,' Ms. Hochul said in her State of the State address last month. Avi Small, a spokesman for Ms. Hochul, pointed to cuts to programs like Medicaid that Republicans in Washington want to enact as another threat to poor New Yorkers. 'The governor is tackling the high cost of living with tax cuts, credits and refunds while expanding social services for those who need it most,' he said. Late last year, Mr. Adams proposed eliminating New York City income taxes for more than 400,000 of the lowest-wage earners. The City Council also passed a major housing plan he championed known as 'City of Yes.' The plan includes billions for the construction of affordable housing and zoning incentives that allow developers to construct larger buildings so long as they include cheaper units. 'Mayor Adams has been using every tool in our administration's toolbox to put money back in the pockets of New Yorkers and make New York City more affordable so that families can thrive,' Amaris Cockfield, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, said in a statement. The Robin Hood report highlighted a scarcity of housing and its rising cost as main drivers in the growing number of people living in poverty. Most people surveyed were either working or looking for a job. And yet many reported falling behind on rent or struggling to pay for food. 'There is a lack of political will to actually invest in services for the lowest-income people,' said Chris Mann, an assistant vice president for Women In Need, which runs shelters in New York City. Peter Nabozny, director of policy for the Children's Agenda, and Mr. Buery served on a state task force that offered policy recommendations for cutting child poverty in half by 2032. Ms. Hochul spurned their suggestions of a larger child tax credit and a new housing voucher. Mr. Nabozny said some recent government anti-poverty efforts have been positive but 'are not large enough to achieve what we could achieve if we really set our mind to it as a state.' One affordability proposal from Ms. Hochul that some legislators have opposed is giving millions of New Yorkers tax rebates of up to $500 depending on their income. This is slated to cost $3 billion, the same amount as last fiscal year's budgetary surplus. State Senator James Skoufis, a Democrat, said that a large portion of this funding could, for example, instead be used to expand a program that reduces the property tax burden on older people.
