Publications

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid provide support to nearly one-third of people in our country. The reconciliation bill passed by the House in May 2025 takes away $1 trillion in food & health care from families participating in SNAP and Medicaid, while giving roughly the same amount of money in tax cuts to families with incomes above $500,000. This fact sheet examines the unfair trade-offs made in the House-passed reconciliation bill, showing that the bill will exacerbate already extreme levels of income inequality across every state.

The workbook contains all statistics and information underlying the figures, including state-by-state data.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid are lifelines for millions, providing food and health coverage that stabilize families and strengthen communities. Cuts to these critical programs will hit children, seniors, and people in rural communities particularly hard. While cuts to either program would each be harmful on their own, slashing both will compound hardship and deepen poverty for the millions of people who rely on both programs. This fact sheet explores the deeply negative impacts that broad-based cuts will have on the effectiveness of the programs, the states administering them, and the people they serve—especially seniors, children, and people in rural communities.

Work requirements in public benefits programs don’t help people work. They block access to food, health care, and housing assistance, making families and local economies worse off. This brief illustrates how work reporting requirements fail to increase work while straining state resources and imposing harmful and costly burdens on all. The brief also provides an overview of better alternatives that would be more effective at supporting employment and reducing poverty.

In its first week, the Trump administration executed a chaotic and aggressive policy blitz, issuing more than 300 executive actions. These actions signal a stark shift in federal priorities—one that threatens to erode the economic security of millions of Americans. The message is loud and clear: The war against poverty is over, and Americans struggling to get by are on their own.

This week marks 52 years since the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision–a ruling that was overturned nearly three years ago, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. The consequences of lost access to this essential care have been devastating. States with abortion restrictions tend to have the stingiest public benefits supports for growing families. This map shows that 10 of the 12 states with the stingiest TANF cash benefits also have the harshest abortion restrictions.

Led by Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Congresswoman Stephanie Bice (R-OK), the House Bipartisan Paid Family Leave Working Group’s I-PLAN proposal is a promising step. The proposal recognizes the importance of investing in state paid leave programs. Strengthening these programs is a crucial step toward building systems that provide meaningful support for working people and their families.

Since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022, many low-income women have nowhere to turn: they face the economic repercussions of being denied abortion care and lack access to the support they need to care for a growing family. This brief looks at how abortion bans and insufficient public benefits at the state level affect women and families. It finds that states with abortion bans often do not provide enough supportive resources for growing families, like health care, food assistance, and cash support. The brief also offers federal policy recommendations to help families meet their everyday needs—no matter what state they live in.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy, stable, and economically secure life. Many government programs aim to provide a stable foundation for all families, but fall short due to legacies of racism. This report puts forth a visionary framework with principles for anti-racist policymaking, focusing on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). It includes three spotlights from leaders in Puerto Rico, Texas, and the District of Columbia applying these principles to advance racial and economic justice in their communities.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy life. But racial and ethnic disparities in the American health system—including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)—block access to quality health care and damage the overall health and well-being of our nation. This fact sheet offers three recommendations to transform Medicaid and CHIP into anti-racist programs.

Racial and ethnic disparities in the health care system have long impeded our nation’s health and well-being. For everyone in the U.S. to achieve their full potential—and for our nation to achieve its full potential—we must ensure equitable access to high-quality health care. This report presents an anti-racist re-imagining of the Medicaid and CHIP programs that actively reckons with the racist history of health care coverage. The report offers recommendations to advance racial equity in Medicaid and CHIP. It also provides principles to guide anti-racist policy transformations that center program participants and their communities.