On Feb. 12, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2019 budget request. Since then, CHN’s members have been busy analyzing the proposal and pointing out the many ways it would slash basic human needs programs and harm low-income people. Listed below are just a few of these analyses and resources; these and many more are also available on CHN’s FY19 Budget resource page.
The president’s proposed budget is poised to wreak havoc upon nearly every community across the country, who will be hurt in distinct yet similar ways. Center for American Progress has developed fact sheets that detail just some of the many harms that people with disabilities, older individuals, communities of color, veterans, young children, women, LGBTQ individuals, and rural communities will face under President Trump’s FY 2019 budget.

The president’s blueprint would slash or eliminate many critical low-income housing programs and increase rents and impose harmful work requirement on struggling families. For example, the proposed budget would significantly cut funding for Rental Assistance Programs, including Housing Choice Vouchers, Public Housing, and several other programs. In addition, the president’s proposal would also increase the amount of rent paid by low-wage workers. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has state-by-state numbers covering these two hits to housing: the first piece details the impact of the rent change proposals by state, including the number of households affected and the average annual rent increase per household affected. The second piece shows, by state, the number of Housing Choice Vouchers cut as well as the dollar amount cuts to Public Housing and to the HOME Investment Partnership Program and the Community Development Block Grant, two programs that are eliminated in the president’s proposal.

Also on the housing front, the National Low Income Housing Coalition updated their budget chart for select programs under the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Agriculture. This handy chart allows you to compare the FY17 final allocations for more than 25 HUD and USDA programs to the FY18 budget proposals from the president, House, and Senate, and to President Trump’s FY19 budget proposal. NLIHC has also put out a fact sheet on a leaked proposal from HUD to increase rents and impose work requirements.

Families USA has a summary of the cuts and dangerous policy changes in the budget that will leave millions more Americans without health coverage, including repealing the Affordable Care Act, slashing Medicaid, and adding new barriers to Medicaid access, among others. They also have a piece on why work requirements don’t work.

The Food Research and Action Center shows how the president’s budget will make hunger and poverty worse in America by calling for massive cuts to SNAP funding, worsening time limits, and replacing about 40 percent of the debit card assistance SNAP recipients currently receive with boxes of non-perishable food items that would be administratively costly, inefficient, stigmatizing and would not allow families to choose the foods they need. SNAP Maps, FRAC’s interactive data tool, allows users to compare household SNAP participation by state and county, showing that SNAP matters in every community across the country.

Finally, CHN released a special edition of the Human Needs Report focusing on President Trump’s budget request. In addition to an overview of the budget itself and the budget process, we compiled many of the program cuts and policy changes in the Trump administration’s FY19 budget that are most damaging to low-income people from select departmental budgets, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture. We have also included proposed cuts and changes to other areas of note.

Check out CHN’s FY19 budget resource page for these and many more resources. Pieces are added to this page as they become available, so make sure to check back frequently as the budget process moves forward.