Trump's Data Deletions Will Make It Harder to See How His Policies Harm Children

On Thursday, the federal government is expected to release jobs data that was not available during the 44 days of the shutdown. As an advocate and expert on the economic security of women and families, I’m happy this data will be updated. But I’ve been thinking about other important federal data that the Trump administration eliminated, related to children’s health and well-being, which doesn’t seem likely to be reinstated.

For example, the US Department of Agriculture announced in September that it will be discontinuing the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) and the accompanying Household Food Security report. The annual Household Food Security report shows how many children and families across the country are struggling to obtain enough healthy food. We know that Black and brown children are at disproportionate risk of poverty and food hardship, and actions by the Trump administration—including cuts to food aid intended for food banks earlier in the spring, the refusal to pay full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the shutdown, and the historic cuts to SNAP made by the budget reconciliation bill in July ($287 billion over the next 10 years)—can only be expected to make it worse. But we will no longer have the data to confirm those expected increases in food insecurity.

Here’s another example: The Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitors pregnancy risk, and maintains a dataset that shows disparities in maternal and infant health. Unfortunately, earlier this year, the Department of Government Efficiency cuts slashed the staff in the office responsible for that data. (What’s more, there is now a banner on the web page that states in part, “This page does not reflect reality and therefore the [Trump] Administration and [the US Department of Health and Human Services] reject it,” which kind of undermines confidence.) Instead of addressing the crisis of Black women’s maternal health, we are erasing evidence of it. This is likewise problematic since the budget bill also made trillion-dollar cuts to healthcare.

And critical data besides the Department of Labor’s Employment Situation Summary, such as the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, was suspended during the shutdown—making it harder for us to know how Black and brown children are doing. (The Census Bureau’s website, incidentally, says this data will be released “as soon as possible.”)

By getting rid of federal data about Black and brown children, women, and families, this administration is making it impossible to see the harm they are wreaking—harm to a generation, harm that will have lifelong effects.

The lack of this data makes it harder and harder for us to see how some kids, especially kids of color, are doing—whether they are hungry, whether they are healthy, much less if they are in trouble. Without this data, moreover, the impacts of these and manifest other Trump administration policies on vulnerable children are hidden from view.

To be sure, this data is only part of the Trump administration’s efforts to make Black and brown children—and their parents—invisible. The federal government has used President Donald Trump’s “anti-DEI” executive order to eviscerate programs like Head Start and rewrite history. The pictures of workers on the Department of Labor’s website are now all white men. Immigrant children and families are literally disappearing from their homes, from their jobs, and from their schools into detention centers. Why should we pay attention when the data showing ongoing racial disparities in hunger or health outcomes disappears—or fight to reinstate it?

By getting rid of federal data about Black and brown children, women, and families, this administration is making it impossible to see the harm they are wreaking—harm to a generation, harm that will have lifelong effects. All of us, parents, families, and communities, need that data back because we can’t help heal that harm, until we know where our kids hurt.