school meals

The U.S. safety net is not easily understood. Difficult to navigate, it sprawls across numerous federal agencies and departments. Dozens of programs, ranging from free school lunch to disability insurance to unemployment protection have different eligibility criteria, application procedures, and benefit levels. While critical for millions of Americans, recipients are under continuous scrutiny: regularly castigated, accused of laziness, irresponsible behavior, fraud, and, among other chilling characterizations, undeserving. Its fragmented nature and lack of powerful allies makes it difficult to protect and leaves many of its core programs vulnerable to attack and retrenchment.

For decades, Republicans have been intent on instilling more stringent eligibility requirements for safety net programs, reducing program funding, and in some cases eliminating programs and agencies entirely. When Donald Trump entered office in 2016, he sought to strangle the American safety net using a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy that relied heavily on the administrative rule-making process and the judicial system, hence moving policy decision-making away from Congress. Many of these efforts ultimately stalled or failed because of legal challenges and administrative missteps by Trump officials.