The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the Big Brutal Bill this week and—like its House counterpart—it’s devastating for nutrition and health care programs for vulnerable communities.
The Senate proposal includes the largest cut to SNAP in history, as part of a budget package that guts basic needs programs.
The bill also contains the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, and will result in 16 million people losing their health insurance. A recent analysis of the House-passed bill found that because of the cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and reduced staffing requirements at nursing homes, 51,000 people will die each year.
Additionally, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as many as 330 rural hospitals nationwide could close or reduce services as a result of this bill. And, new research shows that cuts to Medicaid along with SNAP will reduce jobs by 1.2 million nationwide, equivalent to about a 0.8% increase in the unemployment rate.
Cutting the heart out of basic needs programs including SNAP and Medicaid doesn’t save states or the federal government money—it denies care and creates bigger problems down the road, shifting the burden to service providers, local governments, and taxpayers. This will lead to higher costs and more strain on budgets—household and state budgets alike. And it will cost lives.
It’s not too late to change course. Now more than ever, it’s critical that the Senate act to protect health care, nutrition, and other essential services that help millions of families meet their basic needs. We should strengthen support for these programs—not take them away
Congressional Republicans have floated a proposal to strip the Child Tax Credit (CTC) from millions of children who are U.S. citizens and legal residents in situations where their parents do not have Social Security numbers (SSNs). These proposals ultimately harm citizen children.
While people of all races and ethnicities benefit from Medicaid health insurance coverage, communities of color will experience particularly severe harm from the proposed cuts.
For the poorest fifth of Americans, who will have incomes of less than $29,000 in 2026, the tariffs will impose a tax increase equal to 6.2 percent of their income that year.
We are America’s essential workers. We keep the nation running, even with a very low minimum wage. Americans need us more than they need to watch another billionaire buy another yacht.
Every two years, the Coalition on Human Needs enlists expert staff from its member organizations to update its Public Policy Priorities, assembling a comprehensive set of policies aimed at ensuring that people can meet their basic needs and move forward as they choose.
Eliminating Direct File, the new and free digital tax-filing tool from the IRS, is literally taking money out of people’s pockets. Trump’s decision is a slap in the face to millions of hardworking people.
It’s time for the U.S. to join the rest of the world’s democracies and invest in families by recognizing parental leave as a federally mandated human right.
On February 2, 2025, the U.S. government delivered a devastating blow to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants by abruptly ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that had shielded them from deportation and granted them work authorization.
Blog post by NILC, CHN’s member | This explainer describes how a reconciliation bill will unlock the Trump administration’s ability to experiment with authoritarian tactics through enforcement, threatening constitutional rights and democratic norms.