I originally published this post a few months after I started The Poverty Trap, way back on September 15, 2021. I’m re-posting it today with a few tweaks and an updated preface because it remains a major topic of discussion as our mid-term elections approach, but it’s rarely acknowledged directly. In fact, the concept of corporate welfare is the argument that clearly counters the conservative rantings against the progressive agenda, an agenda that the majority of democrat and independent voters seem to favor.

An updated post, following shortly, will detail why the democrats should use our “corporate welfare system” like a battering ram against the current conservative agenda to slash social safety net programs. In the meantime, enjoy re-reading or reading for the first time this discussion of our real “welfare queens”.

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JOAN DEMARTIN

DEC 09, 2021

This is the trailer for the PBS film that explores the concept of Corporate Welfare and how it helps corporations to thrive, and allows average, working taxpayers to suffer.

I first heard the words “corporate welfare” when Senator Bernie Sanders was campaigning for President in 2015, although the concept had been discussed for easily 50 years before I heard it put into context. Although I had closely followed politics for decades and worked on a few campaigns, I never heard this concept mentioned, let alone explained and made an integral part of a presidential campaign. Senator Sanders described how workers for Walmart, as an example, made so little in wages as full time employees, that they still qualified for food stamps and other forms of government aid for the poor. In other words, the taxpayers were subsidizing Walmart’s low wages with taxpayer funded government programs.

I probably hadn’t heard of corporate welfare because I was watching and reading what now is dubbed “mainstream media”, which not only didn’t cover this issue, but repeatedly branded Senator Sanders as a socialist “kook” for daring to call attention to our government’s hypocritical entanglement in this scheme.

What I did know is that our government’s social safety net was too lean, and the constant complaining, mostly from the right, that cuts had to be made to these “handout” programs, and the talk of “welfare queens” were thinly-veiled, racist code. But this disingenuous scapegoating of the poor continues today with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), for one example, and many others. “I don’t believe that we should turn our society into an entitlement society,” Manchin said, as he was whittling down the “Build Back Better” bill of his own party’s President.

And then I learned about the grotesque amount of money in the form of tax abatements, incentives and bailouts that federal, state and local governments provide large companies for the pleasure of gracing their communities with factories, warehouses and mega stores. This 2020 article from Business Insider cites a Princeton study that “finds that most states and local governments offer $30 billion a year in welfare — as a ‘low-end estimate’ — to corporations, and in some states the outgoing incentives exceed corporate tax revenues.” So our government is losing money — your money — on these “incentives” to draw businesses to local communities.

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But wait, there’s more. This 2014 article from Forbes, probably one of the antecedents to this year’s PBS film “Corporate Welfare: Where’s the Outrage?”, gives a few frightening examples of government subsidies to corporations. Here’s just one: “The 965 companies in the [ Good Jobs First Report prepared in 2014] received over $110 billion of public money. Berkshire Hathaway, a company with $485 billion in assets and $20 billion in profits, received over $1 billion of that money. Its chair, Warren Buffett, is worth about $58 billion.”

It’s true that at least some of these companies never provide the jobs and tax base they promise in exchange for the subsidies they receive. In 2019, for example, General Motors decided to close its auto making plant in Lordstown, Ohio, allegedly because of the decline in demand for the small cars it was making there. But the state had signed several economic development agreements with GM which specified that the Lordstown plant would remain open until 2027 in exchange for tens of millions in tax breaks. As early as 2017, however, GM started cutting jobs and shifts at this plant and “announced it would build its new Chevrolet Blazer in Mexico.”

The partial good news from this scenario is that Ohio’s Tax Credit Authority demanded its $60 million back, and in September 2020, GM agreed to repay $28 million and contribute $12 million in community support where the plant was located, presumably leaving the state about $20 million in the hole from it’s broken economic development agreements.

Now that’s an entitlement society, Senator Manchin.

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Let me know what you think about the idea of corporate welfare, and whether we should continue on this path. Is it outlandish to suggest our government help individuals a bit more and corporations quite a bit less? Leave your ideas in the Comment Section below:

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The Poverty Trap’s most recent post laid out a slew of statistics about the impact of ending the enhanced premium subsidies on the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace. These extra subsidies are what made health insurance actually “affordable” for millions of Americans. And now this help is gone.

Here’s what I (and other dedicated prognosticators) said would happen when millions went without health insurance:

When adults are sick and can’t receive medical treatment, they work less, maybe even get fired from their jobs, qualify for other types of government assistance, burden already overcrowded emergency rooms and contribute much less to the overall economy.

— And first up for our July reading round-up is what is actually happening right now as millions more people go without health insurance, reported in this New York Times article posted on July 30:

More and more uninsured patients are showing up in hospital emergency rooms and clinics, having lost their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Executives running some of the biggest hospital systems, including large for-profit chains spanning many states, expressed concern over the unexpectedly sharp rise in uninsured patients and the costs associated with treating them…And many executives said that the hospitals were also reporting more unpaid medical bills and providing more in the way of charity care.

I’m struggling to understand why this rise in uninsured patients was seen by hospital executives as “unexpectedly sharp”. The ACA statistics are public and a massive loss of coverage was predicted last year. Where else will people go except an urgent care or hospital emergency room when they have no doctor and no money to pay for medical services?

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— And then there is the increasing number of people losing their access to food stamps because of new work requirements, increased paperwork to prove employment hours and routine household information like the number of people living in a household (can you say letters from neighbors attesting to the number of people living in a residence?) Mr. Rogers and his neighbors would be appalled.

A New York Times article published July 20 discusses the impact of the major changes to the food stamp program (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), enacted through the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The changes now require proof of 80 hours a month work for 19-64 year olds to remain on or obtain food benefits, more paperwork to prove nearly every bit of information required on the application and large monetary penalties on states for error rates in awarding too little or too much benefits.

The article focuses on residents of Arizona struggling to keep alive without enough to eat, like a cancer survivor weighing 69 pounds who has to skip meals, a deaf woman and her hearing impaired children whose eldest daughter sells her plasma each week to buy food and a young mother who “fantasizes’ about stealing a grocery cart loaded with food. Both those seeking the benefits and officials call it “bureaucratic chaos”:

Alarmed at the caseload [of food stamp applicants] decline, Arizona rehired some staff and relaxed some paperwork demands, and the rolls grew modestly in May and June. Still, Michael Wisehart, who runs the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which administers SNAP, said, “It’s frankly sickening to me the number of individuals that continue to struggle with the added bureaucracy.”

— Adding insult to much injury, the manufacturing jobs President Trump promised would return while campaigning are in fact fleeing from the small towns in states like Ohio and heading to China. A Washington Post article published August 1 described the last day of operations in the Conn Selmer factory (whose parent company was Steinway) in Eastlake, Ohio, a town northeast of Cleveland.

The factory made some of the best brass musical instruments in the world, was in operation for over 61 years and in its heyday, employed 334 workers. On June 30, it closed its doors, laying off 150 remaining workers and transferring almost all of its production to a 21 million dollar manufacturing facility in Jiangsu province, China.

…there was something inside the plant that Hines [Rob Hines, the current union president] had not experienced elsewhere. In a word, it was pride.He saw it in his co-workers, who would stop and stare in appreciation at a finished French horn or sousaphone. He saw it in the schoolchildren who sometimes toured the factory, where instruments used in the Cleveland Orchestra and the Ohio State University Marching Band were made. “It’s truly amazing, what we do here,” Hines said.

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Join The Poverty Trap community and share your thoughts about this reading round-up in the Comment Section below. What do you make of emergency rooms across the country overwhelmed with uninsured patients, the cruelty of the added work requirements and paperwork burdens that are throwing hundreds of thousands of otherwise eligible people off food assistance, and the factory closings that leave people and their communities bereft?

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

One (Maybe Two) Big Things:

The enhanced premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025, thanks to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”. As a result, ACA monthly premiums have soared an average of 58% from 2025 to 2026. ACA insurers also raised premiums in 2026 by an average of 18%, with another 14% raise expected in 2027. Plus, ACA plan deductibles rose about 37%, or more than $1,000 per individual policy on average.

Older and middle-income adults will be hit the hardest because of the “subsidy cliff”, which leaves all ACA enrollees making 400% or more of a state’s poverty level ($62,600—$63,840 for an individual) without any government subsidies to help pay premiums.

Analysis of data gathered by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other organizations show a precipitous drop in 2026 enrollment within the ACA marketplace, largely attributable to the shocking increase in insurance premiums from both insurer premium increases and loss of premium insurance credits, together with rising deductibles for various policies:

• Based on reports to date of sign-ups and premium payments, average monthly effectuated ACA Marketplace enrollment could fall to about 17.5 million people in 2026 and could be as low as 16.5 million people, down from 22.3 million people in 2025.

• Premium payments from enrollees increased by an average of 58% from $113 to $178 per month. This is lower than the 114% increase KFF projected if everyone had stayed in the same plan because many people bought down to higher-deductible plans and because those just past the subsidy cliff with the steepest increases dropped ACA coverage at higher rates.

• Average ACA Marketplace deductibles increased by 37% (or $1,027 per person) to a record high of $3,786 in 2026. This is the steepest increase in deductibles ever seen in this market and largely reflects the shift from silver plans with reduced deductibles for lower-income enrollees to bronze plans with very high deductibles.

A report published by Wakely Consulting Group early this year analyzed the impact of falling enrollment in the ACA market place. Although the reduction in enrollment so far in 2026 was less than projected in 2025, many who stayed with an ACA plan traded premium costs for higher deductibles by switching from higher cost plans like the most popular Silver tier, to Bronze plans with lower out-of-pocket premiums and less coverage, but much higher deductibles.

The Wakely report also projected additional enrollment losses throughout this year:

Effectuated enrollment (the number of people who pay premiums and maintain effective coverage) is expected to fall even further than previous years as 2026 unfolds and many enrollees are unable to afford higher premium payments without enhanced tax credits, signaling significant mid-year attrition on top of already declining sign-ups.

Why It Matters:

The massive jump in 2026 premiums and deductibles for health insurance purchased through the ACA Market Place (with another planned 14% increase in 2027) is not affordable for tens of millions of Americans, now or in the future. These individuals and families with children already have dropped health insurance altogether, or switched to ACA plans that have less coverage and higher deductibles, setting them up for massive medical debt if they dare to get sick or have an accident.

When adults are sick and can’t receive medical treatment, they work less, maybe even get fired from their jobs, qualify for other types of government assistance, burden already overcrowded emergency rooms and contribute much less to the overall economy.

And they will die. The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance says that 8, 811 Americans will die each year from this Administration’s failure to extend the ACA premium tax credits, alone.

Here’s more on what the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance had to say about American deaths resulting from this year’s changes to the ACA, after analyzing studies conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (Penn LDI) and the Yale School of Public Health’s Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis:

1. 11,300 deaths per year from the loss of Medicaid or Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage due to 7.7 million people losing coverage.

2. 18,200 deaths per year due to the loss of Medicaid coverage among 1.38 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries, causing loss of access to low-income prescription drug assistance.

3. 13,000 deaths per year among Medicaid enrollees in nursing homes due to the rollback of the 2024 nursing home minimum staffing rule.

4. 8,811 deaths per year from the proposed bill’s failure to extend the enhanced ACA premium tax credits.

What We Must Do:

We must expand Medicare to cover every American citizen and those people living in the United States legally. We also must expand Medicare to include dental, vision, hearing and full coverage of prescription drugs. There must be no more subsidies paid by taxpayers to insurance companies in a vain effort to keep prices down and keep their profits up, no uninsured people, no one forced to declare bankruptcy for medical debt only billionaires could pay, and most importantly, no one dying because they can’t afford health care.

This is the least we must do in the wealthiest country on Earth.

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The question for this post is: Are you in favor of an expanded Medicare system that covers all of our citizens and legal residents? Please feel free to leave any thoughts and ideas in the Comment Section below. And please don’t forget to share, like and restack this post as you can—every share helps grow our Poverty Trap community—thanks!

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

William Paca’s words, written in 1787, still ring true today, our country’s 250th Birthday. It is “we the people” who still speak at the ballot box to determine whether our government is being structured for our “happiness”, our common welfare, our common good. And we will soon see how the majority of Americans feel about that.

Meanwhile, as you enjoy the holiday today, in your own fashion, I hope you find time to read and watch a few of the stories I put together—sort of a celebration of our country and an end-of-month roundup—combined.

— I’ll start with a recent 60 Minutes segment with one of my favorite documentarians, Ken Burns, who contemplates what might surprise our founders about America, 250 years later:

— Today, Wes Moore, democratic Governor of Maryland, gave a powerful speech at the Maryland State house in Annapolis, just one floor above the exact room where General George Washington resigned his commission as leader of the Continental Army. General Washington resigned with a letter and short speech before the Confederation Congress, which was meeting in Annapolis, our capital at the time. General Washington’s resignation has long been considered one of the “great acts of statesmanship” because he voluntarily resigned from power.

Governor Moore’s speech today discussed the idea of patriotism and the substantive work required of each of us to guide our country to a more perfect union. “…we are a nation of sacrifice and service”, he said.

— The New York Times Editorial Board published an excellent opinion piece today that laid out five questions it believes our country will have to confront and answer, if it survives for the next 50 years. I’m quoting the first question, below, because I think it’s the most important. Since our government has started lying to us without shame and without punishment, many Americans simply don’t know what to believe. And if we don’t share a common set of facts, how do we form opinions that stand up to reality?

The first question is whether self-governing people still share a common reality. Democracy rests on something we rarely notice — a rough agreement about what is true and what happened. That ground is cracking, as trust erodes in the institutions that once settled fact, and artificial intelligence can fabricate convincing lies in seconds. A citizenry that cannot agree on what is real cannot deliberate. It can only split into camps. When people retreat to tribal enclaves, it can foster a sense of self-righteousness and victimization. The New York Times Editorial Board, July 4, 2026.

— Earlier this spring, The Times also published a brilliant guest essay by Stacy Schiff, author of a book on Samuel Adams, that compared the list of grievances against King George III laid out in the Declaration of Independence with President Trump’s actions today.

They made the American case, in the most concrete terms, that King George III was guilty of every kind of abuse of power. In Jefferson’s accounting, the king had undermined the rule of law, the common good, the judicial system and the political process. It seemed there was little he had not corrupted…

For many who read the litany today, the resonance is unmistakable. So if you really want to know what the founders would say, you might do worse than review a selection of our founding 27 grievances…In 2026 they also feel miserably familiar.

— A fitting end to this July 4th and “reading round-up” post is to honor or at least reflect on the value our country’s most recent immigrants add to our lives, how they are pushed into the shadows while they do the work we think is beneath us, how they toil for little pay and no respect, or even acknowledgment.

Read this New York Times photo essay to get a flavor of exactly how these recent immigrants, here legally or not, keep our society, particularly its most wealthy areas, humming along:

The people paid to wash the large glass windows in the beachfront mansions are also paid to be gone before the arrival of the people who enjoy the clear views of the ocean. The people hired to clean the homes are the bookends to someone else’s summer weekends.

In the Comment Section below, please share your ideas about our country’s big birthday bash, any of the articles and videos shared here…or anything else you think is important. Do you think our government is “working for the happiness of the people”?

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One Big Issue:

Investment in the stock market is skewed heavily toward the wealthy and white. The most recent statistics as of April 2026 show that 58% of U.S. adults own stock (down from 62% in 2025), but the top 10% of Americans by net worth own 87% of that stock, while the bottom 50% of Americans by net worth own only 1% of stock. Structuring the same data in more stark terms, the top 1% of Americans by net worth own more stock than the bottom 90% of Americans, combined.

Breakdown of stock ownership by race shows another disparity: there is a massive gap between white Americans, who own approximately 87% of stocks, and Black Americans, who are 13% of the U.S. population and own 0.7% of stocks, while Hispanic Americans also own 0.7% of stocks, but make up 18.9% of the U.S. population.

This startling analysis from The New School, Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy demonstrates the racial wealth divide well beyond stock market investments, and offers specific changes to our country’s policy choices that could at least partially reverse this inequality.

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Why It Matters:

President Trump’s decision-making for most issues seems to revolve around how the stock market reacts—from tariffs to the war in Iran—the President looks to the response of the market to make major economic and other policy decisions. But how the stock market goes is not necessarily a reflection of how our economy goes. And policy decisions made to help the stock market reach stratospheric heights don’t necessarily benefit the majority of Americans or our country. What might be even worse is that the President himself, his family and administration are heavily invested in the stock market. So is this administration making decisions for the entire country that only benefit the white and wealthy, including him and those closest to him?

As the Nobel-winning economist has explained more than once: “The stock market is not the economy”. The basic reasoning, translated by Investopedia in a recent article, is that “the stock market tracks the value and expected future earnings of publicly traded companies, while the economy comprises all U.S. production, consumption, employment, and commerce.” A soaring stock market doesn’t mean the overall economy and the 330 million people who are part of that economy are doing well financially, and vice-versa.

But according to a Washington Post article published a couple of weeks ago, President Trump admitted the stock market was his oracle and even guided his foreign policy decisions:

“The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course,” he said, flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other top administration officials….

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit. “If you kept this [the Iran war] going, that could have happened, but all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship.”

The Post article also reported the president’s own investment in the stock market:

In his second term, he has shattered ethical norms for modern presidents by maintaining an active portfolio in the market. His investment accounts made more than 3,600 transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the first quarter of 2026, according to an analysis by CBS News.

Here is a comprehensive summary of President Trump’s 3,600 stock market trades for the first three months of 2026 published by CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/projects/2026/trump-stock-trades/. And a CBS video discussing the issue:

Today’s booming stock market, caused mainly by AI investment, is “driving a record share of American wealth…” says Axios in an analysis published earlier this month.

A record 33% of the total wealth of the U.S. household sector was in stocks at the end of 2025, according to Federal Reserve data.

• That beats the ~30% during the meme stock-and-SPAC mania of 2021.

• And tops the ~27% reached in Q1 2000, just as the internet boom peaked.

Yet, the report acknowledges the wealth isn’t distributed evenly—not even close:

The big picture: This uneven distribution helps explain some of the peculiar features of the current economic and political environment.

• For instance, the so-called K-shaped economy, in which GDP growth is increasingly reliant on spending by the wealthy, is likely driven in part by wealth effects of stock market gains for these folks.

• In other words, the rich seem to be feeling especially flush and are willing to spend.

• Meanwhile, 90% of the population hasn’t benefited from the booming market — even as relatively high inflation shrinks their real disposable income.

Again, for the majority of Americans, and especially Black and Hispanic Americans, this “driver of wealth”—the stock market—means next to nothing.

I’d love to hear what you think about stock market investment in general—who it benefits and who it doesn’t—and President Trump’s unprecedented stock market trades this year. Just leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

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For the first time in the history of the Medicaid program, the federal government is requiring able-bodied adults ages 19-64 to work or volunteer 80 hours a month, unless applicants meet certain medical exemptions. This “community engagement” requirement was part of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) passed by the Republican majority last July 4th, and is the first time the federal government has tied health care for the poor and disabled to work requirements.

The Congressional Office of Budget and Management, a non-partisan agency that provides Congress with independent budget analyses, estimates that 11.8 million people will lose Medicaid coverage due to the OBBBA ( H.R. 1) in the next 10 years. 4.8 million of those will be due to the implementation of work requirements.

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Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and its talking heads continue to spin the separation of millions of Americans from their health insurance as a good thing. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of Medicare and Medicaid Services (part of the Department of Health and Human Services), called the novel work requirements “a path to prosperity”.

Watch the full PBS Newshour clip below, and see what you think. But here is another snippet where Dr. Oz stereotypes millions of Americans who have already gone through the rigorous process to qualify for Medicaid: “If you’re sitting at home, which is true for the millions of people who are able-bodied on Medicaid, on average you’re spending 6.1 hours watching television or just hanging around,” he [Dr. Mehmet Oz] said, appearing to cite an American Enterprise Institute analysis that may not accurately reflect how nonworking Medicaid recipients with [out] disabilities spend their time, KFF found.

And Republican pundit, Scott Jennings, weighed in on the poor in a statement from “CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip”, July 1 [2025], shortly before Congress passed the OBBBA:

“Almost 5 million able-bodied Medicaid recipients ‘simply choose not to work’ and ‘spend six hours a day socializing and watching television.”

Oh, really? Here’s how a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis rated Mr. Jennings’ statement describing 5 million Medicaid recipients as “choosing not to work” :

The Keiser Family Foundation, other fact checkers and I beg to differ with your claims, Dr. Oz and Trump Administration talking heads. And I don’t think you believe these lies either.

If you make so little money that you qualify to receive Medicaid in any state ($0 — $1,732/month for a single person), you spend a major portion of each day applying for full-time jobs with health care, not watching TV or playing video games. You are frantically searching and applying for jobs because you cannot exist on zero income, or the top monthly allowable amount of about $1,700 bucks, even if you have applied for and received every social program available. No one wants to live like this!

Although rents have declined slightly since their pandemic peak, median rent these days is still $1,548/month for a one bedroom and $1,844/month for a two bedroom apartment. So if you want to keep a roof over your head and maybe pay utility bills, eating will be difficult unless you also apply for SNAP or earn some amount of money. By the way, not everyone has a living parent or grandparent into adulthood, let alone one of their couches to lie around on all day watching TV and otherwise “socializing”.

I know from experience that it borders on tortuous to apply for, qualify for and then actually receive government help of any kind because in practice, it is not a straightforward, linear process.

Here’s an example:

You usually are required to have an in-person or phone appointment to file an application for Medicaid, SNAP or other programs that lend a hand when you’re not earning enough money or don’t have family support. The appointments are often scheduled for the distant future, and you are told to bring a list of items, like a photo ID, utility bills addressed to you, Social Security card, etc. The person telling you what documentation is required to complete the appointment and application always leaves out one or more items, so you must supplement your initial application after the interview.

Invariably, items are lost or never received…and the agency doesn’t bother to tell you they still are missing a necessary item, so your application sits in limbo while you assume it is complete, and spend weeks waiting for notice it has been approved. This exact scenario happened to me several times during the yearly application process for Medicaid, SNAP and home heating and cooling assistance, in addition to an application for unemployment benefits.

And this garbled process is before the new work requirements ushered in more paperwork and burdened state agencies with overhauling their systems.

The 41 states, including D.C., that have expanded Medicaid to the population between the ages of 19—64 years old have been working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for nearly a year, revamping their computer systems to handle these new requirements—it’s not just the additional paperwork to prove applicants are working the required number of hours, now applicants have to re-certify their eligibility every six months, not once a year.

But now there is an additional documentation requirement: The states were surprised when a little over a week ago on June 1, The Department of Health and Human Services’ CMS issued an interim final rule (with a 60 day comment period ending July 31) that requires applicants to submit another layer of proof that they are indeed “medically frail or otherwise have special medical needs”, and so are exempt from the work requirements.

States may continue to accept a self-declaration or access the applicants’ medical records from other information it already has on file through 2027, the first year the Medicaid work requirements are in place. But starting in 2028, the new rule requires the applicant to prove, presumably with additional medical documentation:

…that their condition “significantly impairs” their ability to perform the 80-hours of required monthly work activities.

According to American Medical Association commentary, the OBBBA and long-standing medical policy, Medicaid eligibility requirements already exempt the following five categories of applicants as “medically frail”:

 Individuals with substance use disorders;

 Individuals with disabling mental disorders;

 Individuals with significant physical, intellectual, or developmental disabilities that impair activities of daily

living;

 Individuals with serious or complex medical conditions; or

 Individuals who are blind or who otherwise meet the Social Security Act disability standard.

Now the applicant, even if declared disabled by the Social Security Administration or is being treated for cancer, for example, must prove they are “significantly impaired” from their already exempted condition, such that they cannot comply with the new work requirements.

Two professors at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Adrianna McIntyre and Benjamin Sommers recently commented on this new rule “overlay” published by the Trump Administration:

What the rule says is that the disease needs to be actively interfering with your ability to work. So people with early-stage cancer who are in radiation treatment but still have the capacity to work or people who have HIV but can still technically work are not exempted.”

“This is where we’ll see large and harmful coverage losses,” said [Dr. Ben] Sommers, Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics, in a June 3 STAT article. “This is a population that has high medical needs and is at major risk for harm if they lose coverage. That is the headline implication of the new rule.”

If you would like additional information on the Medicaid work requirements and the June 1 rule interpretation, a Boston-based law firm provides a thorough and understandable analysis of the new rule, and its impact on current Medicaid recipients, new applicants and the states.

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I’d love to hear what you think of the new work requirements required for the poor to get health insurance, and the additional reporting requirements and paperwork required to prove you are indeed sick enough to not have to work for 20 hours per week just to have insurance coverage. And let me throw another question out there: Is this the Republican retaliation for their inability to repeal the popular Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid coverage? And…if you could re-stack, Like and Share this post with reckless abandon, I sure would appreciate it!

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

Here’s The Poverty Trap’s reading round-up for the “Merry, Merry Month of May”, as promised. I’ve been a bit behind on posting in May due to unforeseen circumstances, but I’ll return to a weekly posting schedule starting this coming week. Hope to see you then!

— In the meantime, I’ll start with a nod to this past Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it used to be called, when Americans “decorated” with flowers, the graves of those who gave their lives in war, ostensibly to preserve freedom and democracy for the rest of us. You can read more about the history of Memorial Day in this publication from the National Cemetery Association, a part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

More important than facts about how this annual tribute to our fallen soldiers came about, I’m sharing a moving essay written by for his Substack newsletter America, America that discusses, among other issues, the meaning of “sacrifice”.

We cannot fully comprehend or measure the scale of sacrifice so many Americans and their families have made, including in more recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Each loss is a tragedy. But we can cherish and honor their collective memory by doing what we can now to sustain their courageous commitment to securing a world of democracy, tolerance and freedom.

— And speaking of paying tribute to the fallen, I can’t help but add a bit if levity to the (appropriately) solemn tributes this Memorial Day, with one of my favorite satirical “press releases” from , writer of The Borowitz Report:

The Borowitz Report

Trump Honors Those Who Helped Others Avoid Service at Tomb of the Unknown Podiatrist

QUEENS, NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In what has become a Memorial Day tradition for him, on Monday Donald J. Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Podiatrist…

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3 months ago · 1941 likes · 497 comments · Andy Borowitz

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— Returning to more solemn affairs, The New York Times published two articles in May showing the impact that President Trump’s economic policies and foreign policy decisions are having on a broader economic range of Americans, in addition to the poor and middle class.

The first piece highlights “the hamster wheel of credit” many American families must lean on to make ends meet amid the current, soaring cost of necessary goods and services. In one example, a family of four can no longer afford their typical lifestyle without supplementing their $140,000/year income with credit card debt:

For the Watts family [the family of four mentioned above], higher gasoline costs are one factor pushing up their spending. The cost of a gallon of gas near their home rose 70 cents overnight one day late last month. Their home energy bills have also soared: Mr. Watts’s gas bill, which is normally under $100, was almost $400 in February.

That’s compounding the stress that inflation has inflicted on his family’s budget. His grocery bill is more than $1,000 a month higher than it was a few years ago.

Another recent NY Times story explains how rising costs and deflated consumer expectations have effectively stopped first-time homebuyers from jumping into the housing market. Here’s how it works:

Prolonged conflict in the Middle East could keep energy prices high and slow global economic growth, hitting sectors like the U.S. housing market, Moody’s Analytics said in a recent report. Rising inflation expectations would suppress demand for homes, especially for first-time buyers, Moody’s added…Fears of broadly higher inflation have led bond traders to bid up the yields on 10-year Treasury notes, a major influence on mortgage rates. The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which dipped below 6 percent just before the war started, has since jumped to 6.37 percent, according to the mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac.

Note: The current 30 year fixed mortgage rate is between 6.53—6.56 percent

I don’t think I need to tie together our government’s policy choices with every Americans’ ability to make the best choices for themselves and their families, and their ability to live the “American Dream”. The connections are self evident—our government starts a war, prices soar, consumer confidence plunges and millions of Americans can’t buy groceries, let alone their first home.

On the other hand, Mr. Springsteen and the E-Street Band’s latest American tour can helps us make sense of the connection between who we choose to elect and how our lives turn out. I just celebrated my 50th year of seeing Springsteen in concert, and his Land of Hope and Dreams tour could be his most powerful and moving yet. Here’ what “The Boss” has to say about the current administration and the choices we must make together to fight for our freedoms, taken from the opening remarks of his show in Boston:

I’d love to hear your ideas on my reading round-up for this month. Memorial Day? Runaway inflation? The war in Iran and its impact on our economy? Springsteen’s tour and his message? Leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below—thanks!

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Breaking News!

According to a New York Times article published just hours ago, the Consumer Price Index, a marker for inflation, soared in April to 3.8%, from 3.3% in March. Here’s a chart fresh from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showing the increase in select categories of goods and services over the last 12 month period. Check out the BLS here for more charts, if you dare.

Inflation is painful for tens of millions of Americans, but for those living on a fixed income, mostly seniors and the disabled, it can mean choosing among rent, food or keeping the lights on at the end of each month. Here are the numbers according to the Social Security Administration‘s (SSA.gov) Monthly Statistical Snapshot for April, 2026.

— There are over 75 million social security recipients, including retirees, the disabled, their survivors and those receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a means tested program for the poor. Here are a few of the most recent numbers:

— The average Social Security monthly payment among all categories of recipients is $1,932.80, and for retired workers the average monthly payment is $2,071;

— Social Security monthly amounts are adjusted annually according to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) formula. Benefits increased by 2.8% for 2026, but the 10% increase in Medicare Part B premiums, which are automatically deducted from social security checks, nearly erases this year’s cost of living increase;

— Social Security is the only form of income for over 22 million senior citizens; and…

— In the context of poverty, approximately 36 million people in the United States live at or below the official government poverty line as of 2024, the most recent year statistics are available from the U.S. Census Bureau, and approximately 15% or 9.2 million are senior citizens.

Some 50-60 million Americans live on a retirement income set by Social Security benefit amounts and perhaps one or more other fixed revenue streams like a pension and/or annuities payments. But these sources of income are typically fixed, with only small “cost-of-living” raises that never come close to matching the increase in prices for basic needs like food, housing and utilities. The problem when fixed incomes meet inflation is that prices for most goods and services go up, but the ability to pay for them stays the same.

And speaking of retired folks, 2026 is a historic peak for seniors, with approximately “11,400 Americans turning 65 each day”.

Food prices, for example, have gone up 34.6% from 2019, and continue to rise—an enormous jump in just under seven years, A February 2026 article in Nerdwallet does a good job of explaining why food prices have skyrocketed, but the reasons matter little to those with fixed purchasing power. The reasons, including corporate profiteering, should matter to our elected officials, though, who are well aware that millions of their senior constituents are making tradeoffs everyday—cutting back on nutritious food, staying housebound to save transportation costs and forgoing medicine in order to pay the rent and utilities.

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The enormous, recent spike in oil prices has propelled inflation to greater heights, thanks to the war with Iran, which has not only increased the cost of gas, it has increased the cost of everything that uses oil, like transportation, and everything that is made with oil, like plastics, for example. Meanwhile, soaring prices for necessities continue to penalize not only Americans living on fixed incomes, but lower and middle-income earners, too. A PBS article explains the how and why behind our rising overall prices and how it relates to the surging cost of oil.

Yes, consumers at the lower end of the income spectrum are hurting the most from the sudden rise in gas prices. See this NY Times article published about a week ago::

Surging gas prices are inflaming a longstanding economic divide in America, as households with lower incomes struggle to pay more at the pump at a moment when prices are already elevated.

And consumers are getting frustrated and angry. The most recent Consumer Sentiment Survey from the University of Michigan released earlier this month shows consumer sentiment about the economy at record lows, the lowest since 2017, in fact.

Sadly, retirees seem to be more worried about money than they are about dying. And many are re-entering the workforce if they can, to either make ends meet or save more for their eventual retirement.

According to a May 9 article from NBC, Palm Springs:

While some re-enter the workforce for a sense of purpose, the primary driver in 2026 is cold, hard cash. According to the latest EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey, 64% of Americans now worry more about running out of money than they do about dying. Data from the most recent Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) Retirement Confidence Survey published March 2026.

How is inflation impacting your household? What actions do you think our government should take to bring down the rising costs of goods and services? Please share your thoughts with The Poverty Trap community in the Comment Section below—thanks!

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There is so much news and other interesting stories to read that all passes in a blur each day, let alone during an entire month. I’ve started and stopped an end-of-the month reading round-up on The Poverty Trap a few times in the last several years, but now I’m going to make it a regular feature posted on the last day of each month. Here are a few noteworthy happenings and interesting reads published (mostly) during the beautiful month of April:

— First up is a short AP analysis of the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision that weakened (many say completely gutted), Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This Section put about 70 of the country’s 435 Congressional districts under federal review to ensure racial minorities were appropriately represented.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the centerpiece legislation of the Civil Rights Movement, succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent racial discrimination in voting.

And here is the full SCOTUS decision.

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— The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not the enforcement behemoth it used to be, at least since Lee Zeldin took over as its director in January 2025. The New Yorker profiled Zeldin and his anti-environmental reign in an April 27, 2026 piece:

In a little more than a year, Zeldin has transformed the E.P.A. from an agency devoted to protecting human health and the environment into one that, more or less openly, sides with polluters. He has packed the E.P.A.’s upper echelons with former industry lobbyists, scrubbed entire databases of information from its website, and dissolved whole departments.

The EPA has even stopped climate change initiatives and officially come out as “pro coal”. Wow.

— Have the Democrats found their voice…in the Maine Senate candidate, Graham Platner? A New York Times opinion writer seems to think so. Published today, her piece lays out the argument for an anti-war Democratic “Tea Party”, of sorts. And Platner, an Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran lays out his argument in that vein;

Platner spoke about the struggles of working people for whom a decent life seemed out of reach, about the disastrous wars he’d fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about the need for a Democratic Party with New Deal-scale ambitions. And he spoke to people’s feelings of being abandoned to Trump’s depredations by a weak and fumbling Democratic Party.

—I’ll end with a New York Times article published in February of this year—before the Iran war sent prices for gas and other goods soaring even higher, and before the tariffs fully kicked in, and just when the American Care Act subsidies were officially eliminated.

“For so many people, basic living has become a burden,” said Erin Hatton, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies the labor market. “The fact is that there are so many people that don’t have a couple extra hundred dollars if faced with an emergency or, they can pay their bills but can’t save for their retirement.”

A few months later the burden of basic living expenses has reached well beyond the poor to middle income and even higher income earners.

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I hope you enjoy this end-of-month and weekend reading. If you cannot access one or more of these articles because of a paywall, let me know and I’ll send you a gift link. And don’t forget to Like, Share and Restack this post if you can…and please leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below—thanks!

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

Yes, data from the Federal Reserve through the fourth quarter of 2025 shows economic inequality, both income and wealth inequality, has worsened in the last 15 months since President Trump began his second term on January 20, 2025.

A CBS report analyzing this data says:

The top 1% of households owned 31.7% of all U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025, the highest share on record since the Federal Reserve began tracking household wealth in 1989. That share has increased even as wealth growth for the rest of the population has stalled or slowed, the data shows.

Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets in the third quarter of 2025 — roughly equal to the wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans combined.

That last data summary is astounding: the richest 1% of Americans hold approximately the same amount of wealth as a combined 90% of Americans. And the forecast for 2026 and beyond is a continued widening of the income and wealth gap, with stipulations of course.

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But why did the inequality gap widen significantly in 2025? Here’s what a few experts have to say:

— The stock market surged through 2025, but mostly due to AI investments. (Remember Attorney General Bondi shrieking into the microphone that the Dow had hit 50,000?) 1 The rich disproportionally invest in stocks and other securities where they hold most of their wealth. A recent CBS article noted: “A May Gallup poll found that 87% of Americans who own stock live in households with incomes of $100,000 or more.” So when the markets go up, wealthy stock and securities’ investors get even richer.

That is in contrast to middle and lower income Americans whose main asset is the family home (if they are lucky enough to own one, likely with a hefty mortgage). Unfortunately, home prices and wage growth (measured against inflation), slowed during 2025 while the price of food, and other goods and services went up significantly, further draining wealth from average income Americans.

— But what about those taxes you paid a few days ago? Another unfortunate reality for middle and lower income Americans who pay most of their taxes on straight earned income—they pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy and uber-wealthy.

Why? Because the tax code levies lower rates on passive income (like dividends from stocks and bonds) than earned income from paychecks. Plus, there are more tax loopholes to “minimize the impact of the tax” for the passive income investments held in much higher amounts by the wealthy, than for salaried or hourly workers, like you or me. Don’t understand those complicated loopholes, anyway? Never mind, the wealthy and big corporations can afford tax attorneys and accountants to understand and apply every legal way to minimize their clients’ taxes.

Thanks to from for sharing the graph below on Notes along with the link to access it from The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Here’s what the ITEP article said about how federal taxes break down by income after the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025:

Taking all the policies of President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress into account, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year. These policies include:

• Dramatically increased tariffs on goods from abroad, a tax that economists widely agree is mostly borne by American consumers.

• The termination of the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit (EPTC), which had made health care more affordable for millions of people.

• The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which overwhelmingly benefits the rich and corporations.

The combined impact of these policies in 2026 is a tax increase for the average American in all income groups except the richest 5 percent. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below. The richest 1 percent, in particular, receive a noticeable tax cut compared to all other groups. [Emphasis added]

FIGURE 1

— But wait, there’s more. There was rapid growth of the billionaire class in 2025. According to an Oxfam report published earlier this year: “…billionaire wealth in 2025 increased three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years.” And Elon Musk topped the billionaire list with an estimated $668 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Yes, that is the same Elon Musk, who as head of the now-defunct DOGE, fired approximately 270,000 federal workers in 2025, under the guise of “government efficiency”.

And U.S. billionaires absolutely pay both an effective lower tax rate and a lower percentage of their annual income in federal taxes, according to an August 2025 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Why Growing Inequality Matters:

The extent of inequality we see today poses risks to pretty much everything, but particularly to our democracy and to our economy. Why? Briefly, here’s what a few experts have to say about the impact of our now egregious inequality:

— Glenn C. Altschuler, a Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, discussed many reasons wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsized impact on our government’s laws and policies. This type of influence can and does skew federal policies in favor of the wealthy:

In 2025 alone, 13,000 lobbyists spent about $5 billion to influence Congress and federal government agencies. The top three spenders were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. In 2024, corporate contributions to political candidates and parties exceeded campaign spending by labor unions by a ratio of 16 to one.

— Consumer spending has been increasing overall, but the spending is disproportionally from higher income households, and this might indicate a shaky economy. A CBS report from late 2025 lays out the statistics:

Consumer spending — which drives over two-thirds of economic activity — is growing overall in the U.S. These days, however, a large and growing share of that commercial activity is driven by upwardly mobile Americans. In the second quarter of 2025, the top 10% of income earners accounted for almost half of all spending, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by [Mark] Zandi [chief economist at financial research firm Moody's Analytics].

And this interesting article, published just a few days ago in The Street, explains why it might be dangerous for the top 10% of wealthy households to contribute over 50% to all consumer spending—when a broad economic base of Americans are not able to buy goods and services, it might be covering up a problem. The author, Hillary Remy, calls it “…a striking concentration of economic activity in a very narrow slice of the population.” This is what Remy says could happen:

When wealthy households carry a disproportionate share of consumer spending, the national data can look resilient even when most Americans feel financially pressured. A strong headline number on consumer spending can mask the reality that lower- and middle-income households are dealing with heavier debt burdens and slower income growth… [And] When a single percentage of households controls more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, the economy starts to function differently. Growth becomes dependent on a narrow group of asset owners rather than broad-based consumer activity.

That creates a fragile foundation.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on our country’s growing inequality. Are rich people’s spending propping up a fragile economy? What else? Please share your ideas in the Comment Section below:

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

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“They’re tired of living in a third-world country…”

That is how the residents of McDowell County, West Virginia described their current situation: like “living in a third-world country.” Once you see this — water as dark as coffee coming from their faucets, a 45-minute drive to get a gallon of milk, little to no healthcare options, you’ll wonder if this is really 2026 in America. The 13-minute segment, shown above, was reported by CBS 60 Minutes and first aired on February 22 of this year.

There are persistent pockets of poverty throughout the United States, located mostly in southern and southwestern states and specifically in several counties within these states, a smattering of other areas where once booming industries have simply gone away for one reason or another, and most Indian reservations.

309 Counties Had Sustained High Poverty for Two Decades

According to a U.S. Census Bureau report published earlier this year, based on data through 2024:

In 309 or almost 10% of U.S. counties, mostly in the South, poverty rates stayed at 20% or more for two decades, according to the recently released American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates.

The latest ACS release allows us to compare changes in poverty rates in most of the nation’s 3,144 counties and county equivalents in five-year periods over the span of 20 years: 2005-2009; 2010-2014; 2015-2019; and 2020-2024.

In this analysis, counties are considered in sustained poverty if their poverty rates remained at 20% or higher in each of the four nonoverlapping 5-year periods. [Emphasis Added]

This map produced by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the counties in “sustained poverty” over a twenty year period. McDowell County West Virginia is the southern most county in the state and is at the tip of a good-sized pocket of counties extending from southern Ohio into Kentucky and Tennessee.

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McDowell county was one of our country’s largest coal producers, but the demand for coal decreased as the need for clean energy increased, and the coal companies abandoned the mines, the area and the people. Coal companies also abandoned the clean-up of mine waste, along with the old, failing infrastructure carrying water into residents’ homes that the companies initially installed.

Now, the cash-strapped county is responsible for replacing the pipes and cleaning up the environmental contamination from the mines. And neither the West Virginia state legislature nor Congress wants to allocate money or hold the companies accountable to clean up the mess. By the way, McDowell County is considered the poorest county in West Virginia with over 37% of its population living below the poverty line.

What is it about these particular areas of the country, drilling down to specific counties, that keep them consistently poor? And if we know this abject poverty has persisted in the same areas for decades, why haven’t elected officials acted to help? Here is how the West Virginia Water Research Institute, part of West Virginia University, is trying to help

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Let me know your thoughts in the Comment Section, below. I’d also appreciate it if you could like, share and restack this post—let’s get the word out!

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

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The least pleasant event anyone wants to experience, aside from death, is losing their home. Not to sound overly dramatic, but from personal experience, the foreclosure process oftentimes can make you wish you were dead. I fought foreclosure for years, then sold my home for exactly what I owed on the mortgage during the worst of the Covid crisis. With hindsight, it might have been better for me if I had just ridden out the foreclosure moratorium in place at the time, and then let the home be sold at auction.

I survived with the help of good friends, my pets and a tough law firm, which was able to correct, on my behalf, the illegalities of the “puppy mill” foreclosure process after the fact, win compensation and a bit of extra money from the foreclosing bank as punishment for violating the law.

But losing one’s home is indeed a traumatic experience. In fact, foreclosure rates high one the scale of traumatic life experiences and can leave lasting physical and emotional scars. At that is exactly what is happening today in our country.

As of February 2026, foreclosure rates have increased 20%, year over year. In 2025 and into the first quarter of 2026, over 400,000 U.S. homeowners went through the nightmare of foreclosure. The five states with the highest foreclosure rates are Indiana, South Carolina, Florida, Delaware and Illinois.

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There are many valid, substantive reasons for the increase in foreclosures in the last 15 months: we are trapped in a declining economy with slowed hiring, rising costs for everything, including mortgage interest rates, home insurance, property taxes, HOA fees, utilities and home repairs that make keeping a home precarious at best. Making the situation worse is the elimination of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which allowed low and middle income earners to purchase health care at semi-affordable prices. Now, yearly costs for health care premiums are estimated to total between $23,000—$40,000 for a family of four. The choice in 2026 for many Americans looks like it’s between keeping your home or buying health insurance.

Here’s what a 2026 article from Nolo has to say about the increase in foreclosures — it primarily blames rising home-related costs, soaring prices overall and job losses for the steady increase in home foreclosures, with a gloomy future predicted:

Foreclosure activity in the U.S. is expected to trend higher in 2026.

…in 2025, there was a marked, sustained increase in both foreclosure starts and completions. According to a September 2025 report from ATTOM, foreclosure filings in the U.S. have surged nearly 20%. This upward trend could be an early indication of more trouble to come in 2026.

Yet, there seems to be a lack of expert analysis for this increase in foreclosures. Otherwise reliable property data sites, like ATTOM, are simply calling this recent increase in foreclosures a “market correction” or “normalization” of foreclosure filings. The ATTOM article noted above lays out its reasoning about rising mortgage foreclosures:

The increase reflects a continued normalization of foreclosure activity following the historically low levels seen during and immediately after the pandemic period. While filings have risen, foreclosure activity remains well below levels recorded during the housing crisis, with strong homeowner equity, tighter lending standards, and ongoing housing demand continuing to limit widespread homeowner distress…Despite these increases, overall foreclosure activity remains far below the levels seen during the housing crisis, suggesting the current rise reflects a normalization process rather than widespread homeowner distress.

What this piece fails to mention is “during and immediately after the pandemic period”, there was a national foreclosure moratorium of federally-backed mortgages in place, so of course there were historically low levels of home foreclosures during the pandemic. The same occurred during the housing crisis of the Great Recession, when there was not only a very short foreclosure moratorium, there also was an extensive federal program in place (HAMP) to help those who fell behind in their mortgage payments stay in their homes. Once HAMP fully kicked in a year or two after it was initiated, foreclosure rates dropped considerably.

Is it a valid comparison to say that today’s soaring foreclosure rates aren’t really so bad because the rates are still much lower than during a time of near economic collapse? Is it accepted thinking that banks naturally will “correct” a temporary downturn in home foreclosures which occurred during two national crises by ramping up foreclosures years later?

While the data on mortgage foreclosures are no doubt correct, the analyses fail to mention the cost to the individual and to our country, of hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes—the cost of the trauma, shame and continuing economic hardship of hardworking Americans whose paychecks can’t meet the rising price of everything.

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Please share your thoughts on the steady increase in foreclosures in the U.S., and how we should handle it. Should there be another foreclosure moratorium, given the massive increase in the cost of everything, the elimination of the health care subsidies, the war? Is it good thinking to compare this increase in home foreclosures to, say, the pandemic when there was a moratorium on foreclosures? We will all benefit from your ideas, so please leave a comment below!

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Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change.

Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap:

“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

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We often forget that music is more than a means of deriving pleasure. In every generation of protest, music has played a key role in defining injustice, the struggle for equality, and the desire for peace. National Women’s History Museum

My last post, Power Of The People: Political Protest Then And Now, talks briefly about America’s history of political protest and provides both historical and very recent examples of how people coming together to protest publicly and peacefully can make their opinions heard by the elected officials who represent them and us. It is literally the most powerful tool we the people have to affect change in our personal lives, our community and our country.

Yet there is another element, when joined with public protest, that adds an exponential impact to our power. And that element is music—songs that tell a story and push back against government policies and laws we disagree with, and even stop violence perpetrated by our government against neighbors, friends and family. Music is the emotional connection between the people and the cause.

One example is folk music, which has been long associated with protest movements in the United States, from its earliest beginning in the late 18th century, to its “revival” after the Depression, through the 1960’s and 1970’s, and straight to today. Acoustic singer-songwriters in the folk music tradition remain the voice of outreach and protest.

Listen to what is considered one of the best folk songs, written and performed by Woody Guthrie:

And Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” is right up there with the best. Here it’s performed by Peter Paul and Mary at The March On Washington, 1963…with a bit of commentary from the singers.

And here’s a very recent tribute to folk music and protest—a segment on CBS Sunday Morning featuring the singer Jesse Welles, titled “Keeping the spirit of American folk music alive”. This cool, young guy from Arkansas is quickly becoming a national treasure.

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Let’s not forget the powerful force of Black spirituals and Gospel music to rouse emotions and move people to tears and to action. Listen to Mahalia Jackson sing two hymns at The March on Washington, 1963:

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Today we have rousing music from Minnesota community members, who call themselves the “Singing Resistance”, and who were profiled by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Hear them lead protestors in song:

And then there is The Boss. A likely billion fans world-wide, including me, are just plain lucky he never quits. Springsteen wrote this anthem to honor two slain American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and to salute the remarkable citizens of Minnesota. In fact, Springsteen just announced a 20 arena/stadium tour across the country, starting in Minneapolis, Minnesota called “ The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour”.

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For now, peaceful public protest (along with protest songs) against ICE and this Administration’s policies are working, at least in Minneapolis. Listen to “Border Czar” Tom Homan announce ICE’s withdrawal from Minnesota—Hallelujah!

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-border-czar-tom-homan-holds-news-conference-in-minneapolis. See also Axios story on ICE withdrawal: https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2026/02/12/trump-ice-metro-surge-ends-minneapolis

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Let me know your thoughts on the power of music, lyrics and singers to propel protest movements. Did any of you fight the good fight to nab Springsteen tickets? What do you think of ICE’s withdrawal from Minnesota? All comments are welcome below—thanks! And if you have an extra moment, please “Like” and “Restack” this post—it will give The Poverty Trap and me a boost!

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One Big Thing:

Peaceful, public protests are the single most powerful tool a democratic republic has to affect change.

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In 2026, the American people are demanding our government keep its “Hands Off!” our people, streets and places of business in even greater numbers since last April 5, when the first “Hands Off!” National Day of Action rally was held in Washington, D.C. and in over 1200 other locations across the country. The protests were organized by Indivisible, MoveOn, and Third Act, which led over 150 groups, like civil rights organizations, labor unions, climate activists, veterans groups, Planned Parenthood and the American Federation of Teachers in protest against President Trump’s policies, including Elon Musk’s “DOGE’ and its random firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Organizers estimated that nearly 5 million people in all 50 states and more in other countries marched and chanted in protest that spring day. NPR put together photos of the rallies from across the country here, and it is inspiring.

Less than a year later, millions more Americans have taken to our streets to show their displeasure with President Trump’s unprecedented and often illegal, actions and policies enacted in his second term. The two “No Kings” rallies —the first on June 14, 2025, drew more than 5 million protesters, and the second gathered nearly 7 million people in rallies across the country. According to Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, and one of the organizers of both the “Hands Off!” and “No Kings” rallies, the third “No Kings” rally is planned for March 28, 2026, and is in response to the: “secret police force terrorizing American communities.” He expects at least 9 million people for this third spring effort, but I think we’ll soon be talking much larger numbers given ICEs killing of 2 American citizens in Minneapolis, and the massive, near-constant protests in sub-zero weather by thousands of brave Minnesotans.

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We can’t assume, though, that most or even many Americans are aware of these current rallies against the Trump Administration, or even that our right to peaceably protest our government’s words and actions is written into our constitution. People across the country, both those who vote and those who do not, simply don’t have the time or make the time to stay informed about politics and other news stories that don’t directly affect them. I personally know formally educated and intelligent citizens who think it’s unseemly, or perhaps unnecessary, to take to the streets and question our government’s actions. But when masked, armed men show up by the thousands in their city, rip people out of their cars or shoot citizens dead on their street corners, they look up, get angry and then, well, publicly protest—not just in the communities where this violence is happening, but across the country and the world.

How would you feel if you saw this scene in your community?

Why It Matters:

Because our constitution and the rule of law matter. We the people are our government, and when our government goes astray, tries from the top down to destroy itself, it is only the collective voice of the people that will stop its implosion.

According to Britannica, “The following graphic and table highlight the largest protests in U.S. history; each marks a significant moment of collective political and social activism.

The key word describing this graphic is “collective”. “…collective political and social activism.” When Americans show up in the millions to protest government policies, we usually prompt change. And today, we can document injustice ourselves with video and photo devices we carry in our pockets, giving evidence to our collective presence .

Still photos of injustice, particularly those captured by professional photo journalists, remain as powerful as ever, despite today’s crucial cell phone documentation by private citizens. These two photos are particularly important to me because each captures moments of protestors’ incredible bravery .

Incidentally, here is the First Amendment to our constitution in full, courtesy of Congress.gov.

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress also provides annotations to help explain every section of the constitution—there’s no excuse for not having a basic working knowledge of a pretty great piece of writing…is there?

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First, which of the largest single-day protests listed in the Britannica chart above do you think had the most impact, regardless of numbers of people attending? How do you feel about public protests in general, taking to the streets in a collective challenge to government authority? Have your thoughts changed about protests in the last few months? I’d love for you to share your thoughts with me and our readers in the Comment Section below:

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I’m reposting below, The Poverty Trap’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute from last year that included several past years of tributes to Dr. King. There’s always more to read and learn about this man’s incredible life and legacy, so I’m including a few new writings and stories I discovered in the last few days.

— The New Yorker is celebrating its 100th year, and periodically publishes memorable articles from its archive. In the latest issue, it re-published an article from 1987, the second year America celebrated the King federal holiday. The author, Jonathan Schell, visited a second grade class in Manhattan to hear what youngsters had to say about Dr. King. One young student named Ian nailed it:

“He didn’t fight with fists. He fought with words and stuff”…

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/02/school-holiday-martin-luther-king-jr

— Today’s Fresh Air on NPR discusses “How racism costs everyone” and explores a question researched by Heather McGhee: “Why do so many Americans believe that progress for one group means loss for another?

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/19/nx-s1-5680178/how-racism-costs-everyone

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JOAN DEMARTIN

FEB 01, 2025

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!

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Photo Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in Cobol Hall, Detroit, June 23, 1963. Read and listen to the full speech, here.

“The price that this nation must pay for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Negro or any other minority group is the price of its own destruction. For the hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out, and we must act now before it is too late….” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., June 23, 1963.

Is the United States heading toward its “own destruction”? I originally planned to share my previous three posts published on MLK, Jr. Day with some additional current commentary, and closer to the actual date of Martin Luther King Day on January 20, 2025. But the timing this year coincided with President Trump’s inauguration and his flurry of shocking (but not unexpected) executive orders.

Given the statements of the current president on “DEI” and race made in just the last few days, I’m glad this tribute to Dr. King is published belatedly on February 1— a more auspicious day for Black history than I realized. According to a post published today by the historian, Heather Cox Richardson , President Gerald Ford officially proclaimed February 1, 1976, the first Black History Month:

“… asking the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Also on this day in 2023, the family of Tyre Nichols buried their 29 year old son after he was severely beaten by police during a traffic stop.

Ms.Richardson closed her post with this alarming information:

In 2025 the U.S. government under President Donald Trump has revoked a 60-year-old executive order that protected equal opportunity in employment and has called for an end to all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. This February 1, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department will recognize Black History Month. [Emphasis added]

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After ordering all federal agencies to immediately end their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices during the first few days of his presidency, Donald Trump held a press conference the day after the D.C. plane crash on January 29, and with out knowing what caused the tragic accident, blamed it on President Obama, President Biden and their “insistence” on hiring a diverse workforce, including women, people of color and the disabled, and singled out the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) for its supposed hiring of more diverse workers, thus making flying less safe:

Of the F.A.A. under Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump said: “They actually came out with a directive, too white.” At another point he quoted from the website of the F.A.A., which he said indicated that the agency was looking to hire people with disabilities, including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” and said that they “all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country.”

The fact is that every applicant for any federal job must meet the standards and qualifications written for that position. President Trump didn’t just imply that non-white employees made flying less safe, he said so directly:

President Trump also is reversing the policies of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, “which was established by the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination against all people in the United States, with a focus on vulnerable groups”.

According to recent reporting by NBC news:

Former Justice Department officials and advocates told NBC News they expect the new administration to swiftly carry out sweeping reversals of most major Biden administration civil rights policies. Already, the Trump-run department has issued a memo freezing all action in civil rights cases, including filings and settlements, and withdrawn from multiple cases filed during the Biden administration.

These actions do not simply reflect a change in a different administration’s policies, but actually change the clear meaning and intent of the Civil Rights Act, itself.

And with that context, you may want to have a read or re-read of my past posts published to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

— Last year I focused on MLK, Jr. and poverty.

“ ‘There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.’ MLK, Jr. in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture presented December 11, 1964, where he addresses the failure to end poverty.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Poverty

JOAN DEMARTIN

·

JANUARY 24, 2024

Read full story

— In 2023, I discussed MLK Jr.’s focus on the importance of public service.

“I’m also not particularly thrilled to join the chorus of those who extoll his virtues on this one day in January, the approximate day of his birth, 94 years ago on January 15, 1929. And I can’t help but remember those many members of Congress who fought against marking the day of his birth with a national holiday and a day of service to our nation. It took nearly two decades of marches, petitions and Congressional wrangling for President Reagan to finally sign the bill into law in 1983, and the first MLK Day was not celebrated until the third Monday of January, 1986.”

The Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

JOAN DEMARTIN

·

JANUARY 16, 2023

Read full story

— In 2022, I wrote about MLK, Jr.’s push for a universal basic income to eliminate poverty.

“In 1967, Dr. King wrote what was to be his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, in which he laid out his plan for a guaranteed income for all citizens, and reiterated this idea later that year as part of his address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

JOAN DEMARTIN

·

JANUARY 20, 2022

“I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”

Read full story

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Leave your thoughts on the latest updates, previous posts, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how his ideas contrast with our current administration’s new “policies” on race…or any other relevant ideas you would like to share in the Comment Section below.

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One Big Thing: The most important actions in 2025 affecting poverty across the spectrum—from the poor to the middle class—came from the unprecedented policy choices of the federal government.

It started with the firing of 220,000 federal workers and additional drastic cuts to federal agencies, continued with on-again, off-again tariffs, followed by slashing of all programs that help the poor, like Medicaid, food stamps and home heating and cooling assistance, elimination of the Affordable Care Act subsidies followed by rising costs, overall. 2025 was not a good year for Americans living in poverty, paycheck-to-paycheck or simply trying to make ends meet, and certainly not a banner year for the country’s economy, with an increasing unemployment rate and rising inflation.

I and many others who write about poverty are emphatic that it is our government’s policy choices that perpetuate the cycle of poverty, rather than the individual choices of the poor themselves. One important example is the decision to let the temporary expansion of the child tax credit expire at the end of 2021. The expansion considerably increased the amount of the child tax credit and extended the full amount to the lowest income families, who previously did not qualify — a low income tax payer couldn’t receive the full tax credit because…they didn’t make enough money to deduct the full credit!

This temporary child tax credit expansion decreased the childhood poverty rate by nearly half—to 5.2% in 2021. According to a report published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in October 2025, based on the most recent data available from 2024, the childhood poverty rate is currently 13% — today, approximately 10 million children in the United States live in poverty.

Here’s what the Foundation also said about the impact of public policy choices on the poor and childhood poverty in particular:

This report, which ana­lyzes U.S. Cen­sus Bureau fig­ures from the annu­al Sup­ple­men­tal Pover­ty Mea­sure (SPM), reveals that more than 1 in 8 chil­dren in this coun­try lived in pover­ty in 2024. With­out the sup­port of gov­ern­ment pro­grams and poli­cies, the child pover­ty rate would near­ly dou­ble — under­scor­ing how vital these efforts are to help­ing fam­i­lies make ends meet. Among chil­dren liv­ing in pover­ty, 61%, or 5.9 mil­lion, lived with at least one employed par­ent in 2024.

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For those organizations that helped the poor, 2025 was a year of chaos, according to an end-of-year report from NPR. Tariffs, swiftly changing government policies, like letters cutting funding and then restoring it (including aid to food pantries), the longest government shutdown in history and suspension of SNAP (food stamp) benefits made it nearly impossible to provide consistent help to poor individuals and their broader communities.

Take this head-spinning example from just the last few days. On Tuesday January 13, the Trump Administration sent hundreds of letters to grant recipients cancelling nearly $2 billion in funding for mental health and addiction treatment across the United States. After public outcry and meetings with elected officials, the administration restored the funding one day later, according to NPR reporting:

A Trump administration official has confirmed to NPR that sweeping cuts to mental health and addiction programs worth more than $2 billion are being reversed…Public health advocates said their organizations were breathing a sigh of relief but were also alarmed and shaken.

“It was a day of panic across the country. People are deeply alarmed but hopeful that this money is being restored,” said Hannah Wesolowski with the National Alliance on Mental Illness…Public health officials around the U.S. described the last 48 hours as chaotic.

And living the American Dream? A 2025 report from Investopedia says you might as well fuhgeddaboudit, cause it now costs $5 million over a lifetime for a family of four, if you dare to own a home, a new car, send your two kids to college… and actually retire. Read the details here.

Why It Matters:

This is a moral issue. There is no doubt that the government’s policy choices, like the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, which dramatically cut government aid to the poor and eliminated health care subsidies, will increase poverty in the United States. Add to those cuts the near stagnant wage growth, the slowing job market reported in 2025 and continuing into this year, and it looks like the poor and even the middle class will lose ground in 2026. If we know that a simple tax credit (regardless of cost) will reduce the number of our nation’s children living in poverty by millions, and we purposefully choose against it, and at the same time choose to slash other help for the poor, including ripping away health insurance for millions of working families…what do those choices say about the people we elect?

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What say you about last year’s policy choices impacting poverty in the United States? The constant chaos? What are our options going forward? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comment Section below—thanks!

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Wishing Our Substack Community A Happy And Healthy New Year!

I want to thank our Substack community for your support in 2025—your reading and sharing of The Poverty Trap helped make this year our most successful yet! Most of all, your insightful and thoughtful comments added so much to my posts and to the conversation on The Poverty Trap— I am so grateful for you, and what we can do together to make the lives of those living in poverty a bit better, and in the process, make our country better.

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Here are the posts you read, shared and commented on the most in 2025!

— In January, you “enjoyed” this post on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s history and legacy in the context of today’s world of anti-DEI, ICE raids and soaring reports of violent racist and anti-semitic attacks.

— In March, we scored two hits with you:

The first post titled “The Working Homeless”, which discussed how millions of Americans could work full time and still be literally homeless, struck a chord.

The second post titled “Thoughts on Poverty” and featuring an interview between Mathew Desmond (author of “Poverty By America”) and Jon Stewart garnered over 1.3 thousand views and many interesting comments—particularly once we all learned how little money and effort it would take for our government to pull the majority of Americans out of poverty.

— And concluding our round-up of your favorite Poverty Trap posts for 2025….

This post from November titled “I Was On Medicaid And Food Stamps...And This Is What Will Happen When These Already Meager Programs Are Cut” sparked a great conversation about the impending cuts to our country’s social safety net.

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I appreciate each of you and hope you all will continue to join us next year on The Poverty Trap! In the meantime, why not scroll our archives and share with your friends and family?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these and other posts in the Comment Section below.

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Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what one “founding member” subscriber recently had to say about The Poverty Trap:

“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

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Wishing Our Substack Community A Happy And Healthy Holiday Season!

What Triggers A SNAP Application…

(Chart below from the October 2025 report prepared by The Hamilton Project)

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I’ve recently written two posts about the federal government’s cruel and short-sighted handling of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) formerly known as Food Stamps:

1. The first post centered on the government shutdown, the court orders to fund the SNAP program immediately, the refusal of the administration to comply with the court orders and some of the most persistent myths about SNAP recipients. You can read that post here.

2. The second post discussed the delayed, post-shutdown distribution of November’s SNAP benefits, the administration’s “manufactured chaos” surrounding the benefits distribution, and the onerous new requirements to receive SNAP benefits in the near future required by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). These new mandates include details of the expanded recipient work requirements and the increased cost sharing burden on the states. You can read that post here.

Meanwhile, a recent report from The Hamilton Project discussing the likely impact of the OBBBA’s cuts to SNAP benefits on current and future recipients, states, and the general economy concluded that SNAP benefits as structured before the OBBBA act as an automatic economic stabilizer, but will not under the new law.:

As economic conditions deteriorate, some policies—often referred to as automatic stabilizers—do not require any policymaker action at all to kick in. Historically, SNAP has been a key automatic stabilizer because when people lose their jobs or experience a decline in income and become newly eligible for SNAP, they can enroll in the program and quickly receive and spend benefits at grocery stores…An unprecedented mandate for states to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits will end SNAP in some states and inhibit SNAP’s ability to respond to recessions…

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In somewhat good news, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) survived the first round of initial proposed cuts to pass intact in the final budget bill —it is fully funded for FY 2026. WIC has been helping pregnant women and women with young children meet their demanding nutritional needs for over 50 years. Inexplicably, the House Republican majority, led by the Trump Administration, had proposed in earlier drafts of the bill to slash WIC’s supplemental payments earmarked specifically for fruits and vegetable in an attempt to cut the overall WIC budget.

Another nonsensical change made in the OBBBA that directly impacts lower income families is the restructuring of the Child Tax Credit. It now gives more money for each child to middle and higher income earners than to the lowest tier of earners. Why? Because the lowest income parents don’t earn enough to take the full deduction allowed per child ($2,200). According to a 2025 report from the Urban Institute, the changes mean:

…the CTC increased average benefits for families with middle- and high-incomes by about $200 and decreased average benefits for families in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution by about $100. An estimated 19 million eligible children (30 percent of all eligible children) live in families that will continue to receive less than the maximum CTC because their parents do not earn enough.

Note: Although the lowest income earners can receive a refund per child when they don’t earn enough money to deduct the full credit from their taxes…there is a cap on the refund.

Read more about each of the federal programs to help the poor and when each was enacted here.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on the changes the new budget will bring to federal poverty programs.

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Wishing Our Substack Community A Happy And Healthy Holiday Season!

The largest social safety net program in the United States is Social Security, ninety years young this year. It is currently keeping over 22 million Americans, mostly the elderly and disabled, above the poverty line.

Here’s a current breakdown of social security recipients, courtesy of the Social Security Administration via Pew Research:

“As of April 2025, 73.9 million people – more than a fifth of the entire U.S. population – got benefits from at least one of Social Security’s programs,” including:

• 52.6 million retired workers

• 2.7 million spouses and children of retired workers

• 5.8 million survivors of deceased workers

• 7.2 million disabled workers

• 1.1 million spouses and children of disabled workers

• 7.4 million receiving Supplemental Security Income

  Note: Some people qualify for more than one type of benefit, which is why these figures add up to more than the total number of beneficiaries.

In the mid nineteen seventies, I was one of the “children of deceased workers” who received Social Security benefits after my father died when I was 17. Because I was under 18 when he died, I received survivor benefits for about a year, and because I went directly to college, I received social security each month until my graduation. My mother also received Social Security benefits as my dad’s surviving spouse. I can’t tell you the sense of “security” this money gave my mother and me, which is exactly what we needed after suddenly losing the breadwinner and bedrock of our family.

And this is what Franklin D. Roosevelt intended when he signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935:

We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.

The Social Security Administration website provides a good deal of FDR’s thinking about this law, both before and years after its signing, which you can read here.

And why not listen to this seven-minute, edited version of FDR’s fireside chat where he discusses the Social Security Act he will sign into law a few months later. Just hearing the caring and civility in his voice is worth your time.

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According to an analysis published early this year by the Pew Research Center, a large percentage of the population receiving Social Security benefits literally depend on that monthly check to survive. According to the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation ( SIPP), in 2022, Social Security benefits accounted for three-quarters of the income for 26.5 million people. And for 16.4 million people, it was their only source of income.

Additionally, the several different Social Security programs are funded in different ways, making some more vulnerable than others. For example, Social Security payments to retirees, survivors of former workers and the disabled are paid through a payroll tax of 12.4%, split evenly between the employer and employee (the self-employed pay the entire 12.4%). These are the Social Security programs that might be in danger because the funds are substantially dependent on the ratio of the number of workers paying into the system versus the number of retirees collecting from the system. You can correctly blame it on the staggered retirement of the Baby Boom generation, whose large numbers sucked down its designated Social Security Trust Fund — the retirees have outnumbered the workers paying into the program so it no longer a “pay-as-you-go” system.

Supplemental Security Income, also managed by the Social Security Administration, is a need-based program for those over 65, disabled or blind and provides a small amount of additional cash each month to those who qualify (sometimes in addition to Social Security benefits). Unlike Social Security, this program is paid for through the general revenue fund and is considered solvent for the foreseeable future.

It’s important to add that the current Administration has slashed the number of workers employed by the Social Security Administration as part of its alleged cost-cutting efforts. According to an article published by NPR in late April of this year, “The Social Security Administration (SSA) has laid out plans to slash about 12% of its overall workforce, or 7,000 jobs.” This reduction in staff already has caused considerable delays in processing applications and handling of the numerous questions that arise just trying to get even basic retirement benefits.

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A large majority of Americans favor keeping or expanding social security benefits. What’s your take on this issue? Let me know in the Comment Section below—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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SNAP PAYMENTS BY STATE

Newsweek: By Aliss Higham on 14 Nov 2025

Source: Newsweek analysis of state SNAP agency announcements. See groovy, Newsweek interactive map that gives details on each state’s SNAP Benefit payments to date, here.

One Big Thing:

The government shutdown ended on Wednesday November 12, 2025, allowing SNAP benefits to resume for 42 million Americans in need of a decent meal. To-date, not everyone has received their full November 2025 benefits. The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed on July 4, 2025 also will require most SNAP recipients to meet onerous work and citizenship requirements, starting immediately. And this Administration intends to require everyone currently receiving SNAP to re-apply.

But First…The Manufactured Chaos:

The Trump Administration chose to fight federal court orders to immediately pay November SNAP benefits from its emergency fund designated by Congress, taking its appeal to the Supreme Court. The administration was granted a temporary stay of the lower courts’ orders, leaving a federal appeals court to figure out the mess.

Previously, the Administration stated it would release emergency funds to at least partially pay SNAP benefits during the government shutdown, but then changed its plan, according to New York Times reporting:

Initially, the Agriculture Department signaled that it would stave off an interruption to food stamps by tapping a set of emergency reserves, totaling about $5 billion — enough to provide at least partial payments. But the agency abruptly reversed course in late October, citing legal, technical and budgetary reasons for the change.

In the meantime, states which had paid full SNAP benefits from their own money were ordered by the USDA to reverse the payments and halt all efforts to continue sending the benefits:

Pending any explicit direction to the contrary from Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), states must not transmit full benefit issuance files to EBT processors. Instead, states must continue to process and load the partial issuance files that reflect the 35% reduction of maximum allotments detailed in the Nov. 5 guidance.

To the extent states sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized. Accordingly, states must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025. USDA memorandum dated November 8, 2025.

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Why It Matters To You:

This government shutdown was the longest in U.S. history, extending for 43 days and shuttering all but the most essential government services. According to a November 13 report from CBS News, at least 670,000 government workers were furloughed during the shutdown (and must, by law, receive back pay), another 730,000 federal employees were “deemed essential” and were required to work during the shutdown without pay (these workers also are required by law to be compensated for back pay). And the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) took a “sustained drop”1 of approximately $7 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The lapse in SNAP benefits has caused much anxiety among the one in eight Americans who receive food stamps and other types of help, like Medicaid and home heating and cooling assistance. The uncertainty surrounding whether any type of social safety net will be available for the mostly working poor, elderly and disabled who receive these benefits is made worse by this Administration’s direct focus on slashing federal spending to help the poor, in addition to making it much more difficult to get the benefits already available:

Mr. Trump and his budget director, Russell T. Vought, have dismantled entire agencies, fired thousands of workers and canceled or halted billions of dollars in federal spending — all without the express permission of lawmakers.

The White House has pursued these cuts in a bid to shrink domestic spending to its lowest level in modern history, primarily by targeting federal climate, education, health, housing and research programs, and a bevy of initiatives that aid the poor.

Millions of Americans who qualify today will be cut from SNAP benefits tomorrow because they must meet the new work and citizenship requirements outlined in the “Beautiful” bill passed by Congress in July. The additional paperwork and reporting requirements will no doubt overwhelm already underfunded state agencies implementing SNAP, in addition to the intended program recipients and directly affect every state budget and operations, according to a recent report by the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL):

1. Expanded Work Requirements (See details here);

2. SNAP funding for nutrition education is eliminated;

3. Additional noncitizen eligibility restrictions enacted: “Several legally present immigrant categories, including refugees, asylees and human trafficking survivors, will lose access to SNAP.” ;

4. Administrative Cost Share will increase for all states from 50% to 75% ; and

5. Benefit Cost Sharing/Payment Error Rates will change: “For the first time in the program’s history, states will be required to contribute to SNAP benefits if they have a payment error rate above 6%. A state’s payment error rate, or PER, is the combined percentage of overpayments and underpayments that a state makes in SNAP benefit allocations. Payment error rates are a measure of payment accuracy, not fraud.”

But Wait, There’s More:

The USDA announced that all current SNAP recipients will be required to reapply for benefits to root out fraud (no start date given yet), although most states require SNAP recipients to report any changes to their household income or size every six months. Here’s what the Agriculture Secretary had to say about the SNAP program:

“…the plan is to “have everyone reapply for their benefits, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through ... food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”

And here are President Trump’s recent thoughts on the SNAP program:

“[SNAP] was meant for people that had real problems, in many cases people that were down and out, people that couldn’t be saved. It wasn’t meant for people who could do whatever they want, the people that say ‘well I don’t think I’ll work, I’ll just, you know, collect this money.’’

In other words, only the “truly needy” will receive food assistance. Does this mean that if you’re alive but at deaths’ door from lack of nutritious food, you won’t qualify for food stamps because you literally have “survived” without it?

Think of the extra state money required to implement the expanded work requirements and review all new SNAP applications. Think of the millions of Americans, your neighbors, family, friends and work colleagues who will go without food and/or suffer undue stress from applications and re-applications for a card loaded with an average of $177 a month for food.

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Here’s a link to my last post on SNAP benefits. Let’s hear your thoughts on the shutdown, SNAP debacle, new work requirements and other restrictions on receiving SNAP benefits being implemented right now.

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