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PUBLIC BENEFITS JUSTICE UPDATE
AUGUST 2025
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The Senate’s Budget Reconciliation Bill is Bad for Children and Families
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Families are already struggling with higher costs of living, and the recently passed law H.R.1 will increase the costs of health care, food, and everyday necessities. The law's provisions will drain money from critical state programs that help families with the lowest incomes to finance tax breaks for the wealthy.
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| The Silent Link: The Food System’s Role in Black Maternal Mortality |
| Attacks on the nation’s food system come amid a deepening Black maternal health crisis. Poor nutrition during pregnancy is linked to some of the most common contributors to maternal death in the United States. If the U.S. continues to dismantle federal nutrition supports, it will exacerbate maternal mortality rates for the Black community. |
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| On the Chopping Block: How Medicaid Cuts Will Impact Mental Health |
| Medicaid pays one in four dollars for vital mental health and substance use treatment. Because of funding cuts to Medicaid in the recently passed reconciliation bill, much of the progress made to expand mental health access since 2020 may be reversed. Drastic cuts to Medicaid will mean drastic cuts to mental health and substance use services. |
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In the News
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JULY 7, 2025 | THE IMPRINT
Trump Relaunches TANF Pilot
The Administration for Children and Families is restarting the TANF pilot program with new criteria and application materials for states. These pilots were authorized under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 to assess accountability measures for the TANF program beyond the Work Participation Rate (WPR). CLASP has expressed concern about the WPR as a measure of TANF success.
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MAY 14, 2025 | THE 19TH
Millions of Immigrant Families Would Be Shut Out Under New Child Tax Credit Proposal
Immigrant families will be excluded from the Child Tax Credit under provisions in the reconciliation package proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year. Ashley Burnside describes the harm these proposals will cause for immigrant children and families.
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MAY 2, 2025 | THE GRIST
Trump radically remade the U.S. food system in just 100 days
In just about 100 days, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins have significantly constrained the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s efforts. Teon Hayes explains how these changes will escalate rate of food insecurity and poverty.
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National, State and Local Spotlights
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| Devastating Reconciliation Bill Passes
On July 4, 2025 President Trump signed H.R. 1, notably the largest wealth transfer from people with low incomes to the wealthiest. H.R. 1 makes fundamental changes to Medicaid, SNAP, and the Child Tax Credit. Because of this bill:
In the coming months, the PBJ team will be releasing blogs and policy briefs detailing the harms of H.R. 1 to families who need support meeting their basic needs.
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Federal Agencies Moves to Reinterpret “Federal Public Benefits” to Further Restrict Program Eligibility
In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a notice reinterpreting the definition of “federal public benefit” in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. The language in this notice ignores 30 years of previous implementation, greatly impacting immigrant access to critical services, including community health center care, mental health, substance use care, and Head Start. CLASP released a statement on the notices in July. CLASP will submit comments to push back against HHS’ reinterpretation and has a number of ways to support partners to engage on the notice, whether through sign-on letters or template comments.
If your organization is interested, please reach out to Isha at [email protected].
Comments are due August 13.
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Positive Changes to the CalWORKS Program
A coalition of nine advocacy organizations in California have promoted a package of improvements to the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS) program, which is California’s TANF program, in the 2025-2026 state budget package. These changes are designed to modernize the program and to move it beyond its racist and sexist legacy.
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PBJ Team Gets a New Director
In June, the PBJ team welcomed a new director, Isha Weerasinghe. Isha has been at CLASP for seven years, previously working on the youth team and across the teams in mental health policy. Her background is in public health and local and federal health policy, centering health equity and the needs for people who have been historically disenfranchised. She’s excited to have this opportunity to lead and support such an incredible team of people who are committed to changing the paradigm for federal public benefits.
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Farewell to Our Emerson Hunger Fellow, Marquelle
At the end of July, we had to say a heartfelt "see you later" to our incredible Emerson Hunger Fellow, Marquelle Ogletree. During her five months with us, Marquelle brought a wealth of knowledge and made a lasting impact on the PBJ team. She played a key role in advancing our policy work amid multiple threats, and provided invaluable support with strategic planning and onboarding new members to our Community Partnership Group (CPG). We are deeply grateful for her contributions and wish her all the best in her next chapter!
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Key Blog Posts and Publications
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JULY 25, 2025 | ASHLEY BURNSIDE
July Marks a Call to Action for the Disability Community
Commonly referred to as Disability Pride Month, July commemorates the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, a hard-fought legislative achievement that provides the disability community with comprehensive civil rights protections. Amid these celebrations, this month also marks the passage of a law that will cause great harm for people with disabilities: President Trump’s budget reconciliation law. This new law will result in disabled people losing health care and nutrition assistance.
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JULY 24, 2025 | SUZANNE WIKLE
Tying Medicaid to Work Further Limits Who Policymakers Deem Worthy of Health Insurance and Undermines the Affordable Care Act
Access to health insurance and health care has never been a right in this country. There has always been a division between those that are considered “worthy” and those that are not, mostly along wealth and racial lines. The recent political conversations about Medicaid unfortunately reinforce this division.
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JULY 23, 2025 | ASHLEY BURNSIDE
10 Things to Know About the Child Tax Credit Under the New Trump Reconciliation Bill
On July 4, President Trump signed his reconciliation law that will make changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The reconciliation bill will change how big the CTC will be and will cut some families off from accessing it. This blog includes ten things you should know about the CTC.
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JUNE 18, 2025 | PARKER GILKESSON DAVIS
Land, Labor, Liberation: A Juneteenth Reflection on Racism in American Agriculture
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.
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MAY 27, 2025 | ASHLEY BURNSIDE
Proposed Reconciliation Changes to SNAP Would Reduce Access for Disabled People
Lawmakers included dangerous cuts to SNAP to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest people and corporations in their budget reconciliation bill. These proposed changes will result in millions of 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.
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