My name is Saima Akhtar, and I’m a Senior Attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. As Giving Tuesday approaches, I’d like to talk to you about how your donation will be especially critical for NCLEJ as we fight back against Trump’s extreme agenda in 2025.
NCLEJ is dedicated to protecting and expanding access to critical public benefits programs like SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, Cash Assistance, and more. But agency dysfunction, lack of language translation services and disability accommodations, confusing application instructions, and overloaded call centers create unlawful barriers to access for these life-saving programs.
On top of existing problems hampering SNAP access at the state-level, we expect a renewed assault on the social safety net, particularly SNAP, under the incoming federal administration. During his first term, Trump proposed a 30% budget cut to SNAP as well as changes to work requirements that would have kicked more than three-quarters of a million low-income people off SNAP, had legal intervention been unavailable to stop them.
Project 2025 outlines a number of potentially devastating changes to SNAP, including increased work requirements, reducing the benefit amounts to households, eliminating expanded eligibility up to 200% of poverty that most states rely on, and curtailing the benefits available to low-income households who also receive utility assistance. Project 2025 also outlines changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) that will weaken regulatory protections in the production of baby formula.
The National Center for Law and Economic Justice advances racial and economic justice through ground-breaking impact litigation, policy advocacy, and support for grassroots organizing. We have provided legal representation and support since 1965.
