The Very Real Ways Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Food Program Cuts Will Harm Families And Kids

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a reconciliation bill that passed the House and will see the Senate voting on it soon, contains more than $300 billion in cuts between now and 2034 to social safety nets like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). In addition, WIC (Women, Infants and Children) would see $100 million in cuts, and the bill would eliminate $700 billion from Medicaid, affecting 10 million people. If the SNAP cuts go through, it would affect 40 million Americans, including more than 2 million children.

“The basis of this bill is they’ve cut down $1.75 trillion, but instead increased the expenses to $4 trillion,” said B. Wong, a community strategist who chose to be anonymous to protect their identity. “It would seem that this saving of $1.75 trillion is used as an excuse to borrow more from the Federal Reserve, which borrows from the world. So this saving is only performative. Like, look guys, we can cut down our expenses so you can loan us more money.”

In turn, $168 billion would go to funding immigration and border law enforcement.

“The situation is that every single one of political factions, they are not looking out for the interest of people,” Wong said. “They don’t care about giving people a fulfilling life that allows them to live out their potential.”

According to Danielle Zold, a pediatric registered dietitian, a former supervisor for WIC and owner of Nourished Pediatrics, the proposed cuts would mean children who received $27 a month for fruits and vegetables would now only get $10.

“For SNAP, these cuts could be the largest in history,” Zold said. “Families already struggling to afford groceries may have even less to work with, and up to 18 million kids could lose access to free school meals. These programs are often interconnected — when one is cut, the others can’t fill the gap.”

Research shows that WIC improves things like birth outcomes and increases fruit and vegetable intake.

“After the bipartisan-supported Cash Value Benefit increase in 2021, we saw families eating more produce, reporting more dietary variety, and feeling more food-secure,” she said. “The impact is real and measurable.”

Dr. Casey Moothart, a pediatrician at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Cincinnati, has seen firsthand the positive effects these programs have on his patients, who are on Medicaid.

“I can’t imagine a more cost-effective program than WIC and SNAP,” he said. “We know that early childhood development, especially brain development, is something that occurs largely prior to kindergarten. Quality infant formula is very expensive. Having a program that will provide optimal nutrition for children in this situation is crucial. If we’re going to provide equal opportunity for the children of this nation, ensuring that growing babies are getting proper nutrition is absolutely essential. Without proper nutrition, we frequently see things like iron deficiency, which can impede cognitive development.”

Sarah Mendelson is a distinguished service professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and formerly worked for USAID — which is being disbanded despite positive contributions such as developing rapid food nutrients — and the National Democratic Institute in Moscow. She said what’s happening now is “anomalous” and everything has happened much faster than usual.

“As somebody who has spent a lot of time looking at transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, but also rising trends in authoritarianism, you’d expect the attack on the media, the universities and the rule of law,” she said. “But the speed with which this has happened is unprecedented. Food insecurity is never one thing. It’s connected to other aspects of poverty or unemployment or health issues. And for an administration that talks about making America healthy again, this is not doing that.”

Americans are already having to finance their grocery bills through loans, which further puts them into debt. But one reason millions of Americans voted for Trump was because he promised to improve the economy.

“All the Biden talk about the macroeconomic recovery really clashed with how many Americans were experiencing the economy post-pandemic,” Mendelson said. “We talk about the United States as a developed country, but there are huge gaps in life expectancy, in maternal mortality, particularly along race. Cutting health insurance, SNAP and WIC is going to exacerbate people’s situation. It is a very bad trajectory for the United States.”

The Republicans like to condemn lower-income people for accepting “handouts” or being dependent on the government. But according to a 2016 Economic Policy Institute study, if the federal minimum wage were raised from the current $7.25 an hour to $12, it would reduce people’s need for public assistance. It also would reduce spending on government assistance every year by $23 billion.

“These aren’t ‘handouts,’ they’re investments,” Zold said. “Programs like WIC and SNAP are designed to give children a strong start in life and prevent costly problems down the road. Most families using these benefits are working families trying to make ends meet. Helping people meet their basic needs isn’t charity. It’s public health.”

“My [patients’] parents and caregivers go out of their way to make appointments, to set up and keep their visits at our pediatric office, at WIC offices, and with many other programs to help their children,” Moothart said. “That isn’t easy when you’re juggling jobs and other responsibilities.”

Though America is the richest country in the world, our capitalist government doesn’t see the social safety net as a public health issue.

“Most high-income countries have a completely different concept of how the government engages with the population across the board from cradle to grave — and we don’t,” Mendelson said. “We commodify health as opposed to it being a right. We commodify food as opposed to it being a right. And it turns out American exceptionalism has some negative consequences as well.”

First of all, don’t despair. Mendelson said it would be helpful if people showed up to town halls and called members of Congress.

“This isn’t a red-blue issue,” she said. “It’s a ‘I need to feed my kid’ issue. Period. Don’t wait until the midterm elections. Let your representatives know now. It’s not acceptable to be advancing this on the backs of working people or people who are having struggles to find work. It’s up to all of us to call them out on it and to demand better governance.”

“I would just say to any politician of any stripe: Who would disagree with supporting the health and development of young children in this country?” Moothart said.

With the government failing Americans, more people must turn toward alternatives like food banks, mutual aid and community.

“We need to think more like strategists and we need to not take for granted a comfortable and dignified life,” Wong said. “We need a community that is genuinely able to help people feel more free and loved in order for people to have the mental strength to be able to confront this. Mutual aid should not just be at the level of me giving you some stuff and you giving me some stuff. It needs to be a different mentality of actually looking out for each other and also feeling secure enough to accept help from each other and not make it all about if I accept help I look weak.”

But it’s not all gloom and doom. Again, Americans must lean on their local communities.

“If you’re looking for hope, there are communities that will come together and try and figure this out, and we’ll be looking for bright spots across the country,” Mendelson said. “I believe it will get tougher, but I think this could also be a turning point. The very enormous challenges we’re facing also are the kernel of opportunity to change things.”