Once again, the Trump administration has decided on a measure that is callous not just to people of color and immigrants but to every citizen who has suffered poverty in the United States.
Up until this year, the U.S. government kept a reasonably accurate tally of the number of poor people in the United States. Recent policy proposals from the Trump administration, however, have sparked debate over how federal agencies measure poverty and economic hardship.
According to official U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the national poverty rate stood at 11.1% (approximately 36.8 million people) in 2024, reflecting shifts in post-pandemic economic recovery. Critics say proposed administrative changes to federal reporting standards will make it harder to know the real numbers going forward.
While the Census Bureau continues to publish the Official Poverty Measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure, changes to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual report on household food security will leave an incomplete picture of hunger and hardship across American households.
The USDA announced recently that the reports have been terminated because they are supposedly costly, redundant, and do nothing more than fear-monger. Could the truth be that the Trump administration can’t afford the political reality that its policies are not working, and Project 2025 is a massive failure? Despite the Trump administration’s decision to ignore America’s poor, many still consider the food security report one of the best indicators of U.S. economic health.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “for more than a quarter of a century, the household food security report has provided a consistent national assessment of domestic food security. The report has aided policymakers in understanding the drivers of food insecurity and the ways they should respond to them.”
This administration is adverse to SNAP benefits. The poor are allowed to starve for the “good” of the country. There are no more so-called “welfare queens,” and given this nation’s propensity for organized crime, I doubt there ever were. Besides, we live in an age of digitalization, and it is harder for individual welfare recipients to engage in welfare fraud. So, why is the administration so against the poor? What can possibly be gained by failing to count their numbers?
Evidence is mounting that this administration prefers to attack civil rights organizations on such grandiose charges of money laundering. The SPLC is one case, born in the 1980s with an eye to fight the Ku Klux Klan and other right-wing groups and ensure the terrorism of these right-wing groups does not continue the blatant poverty and discrimination fostered by the violence and intimidation of these groups. Men like Morris Dees and the late Julian Bond fought against the right-wing extremist groups throughout the United States.
During this period, the SPLC brought suits against right-wing organizations that inflicted harm and violence on African Americans and other minority groups. But this anti-poor and people-of-color attitude seems to stem from Washington these days despite the rising poverty in the U.S. One in every eight individuals in the United States receives SNAP benefits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides food and assistance to millions. That number is approximately 12.3 percent of the population, or 42 .1 million individuals.
However, measuring poverty is somewhat murky. Waiting for someone to qualify for SNAP benefits may mean ignoring other basic needs like housing. As People’s World has reported, many people who qualify for SNAP benefits still face other problems that SNAP does not cover. People who desperately need help may fall through the cracks. They might be homeless, hungry, and destitute, but they have not received assistance.
If there is no way of measuring poverty, not only are homeless and evicted tenants not counted, but many who are receiving food stamps are not counted. The thousands of workers who have given up looking for work are not counted. Many more hundreds who are forced to wait in breadlines are not counted. However, even worse, the constant attacks on human rights and civil rights organizations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation further weaken the voice of the poor.
This administration seems to desire that poor people’s protests go ignored. They want poor people to disappear. The real tragedy is that these Republican and MAGA politicians were elected on the issue of bringing back jobs and wealth to the U.S. economy. They promised the average worker they would make America great again. Perhaps they exaggerated.
The richest ten individuals in the United States had a total estimated wealth of $2.924 trillion. That is $1.35 trillion more than Italy’s GDP and $666 billion more than France’s GDP. The jobs Trump promised to working people have been slow in materializing. It seems the wealth and “golden age” the president promised were only for the wealthy, not for the working class.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
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