Blog#251- 7/22/25
EXPANDING THE LOWEST CLASS
By
Richard Davis
The gaps between the have’s and have not’s has been widening in this country for many years. But with passage of the 2025 budget bill, that gap will not only widen but a new economy will push unprecedented numbers of people into poverty and homelessness.
The people in our country who struggle to stay above water while working two or three jobs deal with a constant threat of homelessness and social stigma. Things will be so much worse in the next few years as federal fuel assistance allotments are eliminated and thousands of people lose their Medicaid benefits. That would be bad enough, but the budget bill makes unprecedented cuts in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) that families have relied on for decades to be able to afford enough food for basic nutrition.
Volunteer food banks have already been overwhelmed with the numbers of people who need free food just to survive and those banks will have a hard time keeping up with demand when the SNAP benefits are cut. It will be a perfect storm and the lower class in this country will feel like they are under assault; because they are.
Here’s an explanation of some of the technical details of the cuts to the SNAP program from U.S. News and World Report. “How much would SNAP benefits cost state governments under the new regime? It’s hard to say. That’s because each state’s share of the cost will be calculated according to its error rate – how often it overpays or underpays program participants. The federal government will continue to pay all SNAP benefits for states with an error rate under 6% – a category made up of just eight states in 2024 – while the most error-prone states will have to pay for 15%. States will also have to foot the bill for three-quarters of the cost related to administering the program, up from their current share of just half.”
Most states have been struggling with budgets and the Medicaid cuts alone will push them beyond their capabilities to help citizens who lose coverage. States will have to decide between medical care and food and slice the pie so thin that any benefit to the needy will be meager at best.
The U.S. News report goes to explain that, “Another report by the Urban Institute found that 5.3 million families would lose at least $25 a month – with an average loss of $146 a month. The affected families would include 1.7 million households where at least one member works, the analysis shows. The majority of SNAP recipients who can work, do work, another report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found. But intermittent employment, like seasonal jobs and gig-economy work, may not meet the threshold required to maintain benefits. Waxman says the new requirements don’t line up with the real-life challenges of gig-economy workers and other members of the working poor.”
There is a work requirement to receive SNAP benefits even though about 60% of current beneficiaries work. It is a change that will make it impossible for thousands of people to receive benefits. This is a direct result of the Republican misperception that all people who receive government benefits are lazy and don’t want to work.
In Vermont 67,000 people, or 10% of the population, receive SNAP benefits. For this population a loss of $25 or more a month could be catastrophic. When people are living on the edge between barely getting by and homelessness a few dollars of assistance lost can push a family over the cliff.
Are we prepared for the consequences of this assault on the American lower class?
