Congressional Republicans Are Planning One of the Largest-Ever Cuts to Basic Supports for Children

As Republicans on various House of Representatives committees write new legislative text to enact massive tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans, architects of the plan have aligned behind sweeping budget cuts that would harm the most vulnerable people in our country: America’s kids. Specifically, this potential legislation would enact a slew of policies that cut basic needs supports for families with children by slashing funding for food assistance, health care, and even programs that support foster care.

At a time when rising prices are straining families’ budgets, it’s the worst moment for Congress to make these historic cuts. The portions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid cuts that likely affect kids, plus the elimination and gutting of federal dollars passed to states to support families, would add up to one of the largest-ever cuts to programs that support children.

Congressional Republicans are cutting food assistance for hungry children

SNAP provides food assistance to people in and near poverty, nearly 62 percent of whom are in families with children. In total, 1 in every 5 children receive SNAP benefits, which help keep them fed when their families would otherwise struggle to put food on the table. These benefits not only enable stable, sufficient access to food, which ensures kids grow up healthier, but also free up space in household budgets to allow low-income families to pay for other critical expenses such as housing and child care. In doing so, SNAP helps pull children out of poverty, including 1.3 million children in 2023 alone. This sets children up for future success, as kids who spend longer periods of time in poverty during childhood are less likely to graduate high school or find stable employment while being more likely to report poor health outcomes. But now, children across the country are at risk of losing SNAP due to congressional Republicans’ proposals.

Rigid paperwork requirements would take food assistance away from millions of children. Under current policy, adults who have a child under the age of 18 can waive work requirements and are exempt from the three-month benefit time limit. However, Republicans on the House Committee on Agriculture are considering expanding burdensome paperwork requirements to families with children, as well as to older Americans, putting more than 4 million kids at risk of receiving reduced benefits—even if their parents are working.

Importantly, several proposals under consideration would dramatically reduce benefit amounts for families and further strain family budgets during a time of rising prices, especially for groceries and other household goods. For instance, some of these proposals have short-listed policy changes to the benefit amount by freezing or rolling back increases to benefits under the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP). Changes to the TFP would prevent benefits from growing to accurately reflect consumption patterns or actively reverse the 21 percent increase in benefits that was achieved in 2021, effectively cutting already-low benefits by an average of $1.40 a day.

Cuts to SNAP benefits and eligibility could also come at the state level, as the proponents of these proposals eye options to push program costs onto states, many of which cannot afford to take on tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending each year—particularly during recessions, when benefits are needed most. These attacks on SNAP would overwhelmingly harm children, especially children of color, by increasing food insecurity and families’ ability to afford other basic needs, such as housing, utilities, and basic goods.

Medicaid cuts would lead to children losing health coverage

Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are indispensable to low-income families seeking essential health care. For millions of families, Medicaid serves as a keystone source of health care access, providing a variety of services, such as well-child care, youth behavioral health services, and services for special health care needs. Nationwide, Medicaid covers 42 percent of children, totaling more than 38 million children enrolled. Moreover, research demonstrates that children covered by Medicaid and CHIP have better health outcomes in adulthood, increased college enrollment, and higher adult earnings. In fact, the economic benefits of Medicaid are so large that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates Medicaid spending on children is offset by half via increased earnings for those children, higher tax revenues, and lower federal expenditures when they are adults. Yet still, Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce are weighing several proposals to cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars, which the CBO recently confirmed would result in millions of Americans losing coverage.

One option they are considering is paperwork requirements that would threaten children’s access to health care. A study by Manatt Health estimated average annual coverage losses between 2026 and 2034 for children under the two Medicaid work reporting requirement scenarios being considered by Congress. Center for American Progress analysis of that study found that an estimated range of 263,000 to 803,000 children would lose coverage if Medicaid work reporting requirements applied only to adults eligible under the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion and 502,000 to 1.5 million children would lose coverage if work reporting requirements applied to all nondisabled adults. If these proposals also decrease the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) floor for the ACA expansion, states will be unable to fully shoulder the financial burden, resulting in additional coverage losses.

Alongside these potential Medicaid coverage losses, congressional Republicans have shown support for letting the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits expire, which would drive up insurance premium costs for families by thousands of dollars as early as next year.

Significant federal funding cuts to Medicaid and CHIP would create large holes in states’ budgets that would eventually lead to restrictions on eligibility, bureaucratic hurdles, and reductions in benefits, all resulting in coverage losses among children. Furthermore, federal cost shifts—particularly for health care, a major state budget line item—could force states to make painful cuts to other programs to meet children’s basic needs, including education.

TANF funding cuts would eliminate essential financial support for families

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides assistance exclusively to low-income families with children. On average, almost three-quarters, or 73 percent, of TANF recipients in 2024 were children. This funding is used for basic cash assistance, child care, and work and education activities, among other things—serving as an essential tool to support children and families in poverty. Yet the majority in the House is considering several proposals that would cut program funding, which would reduce the number of children receiving support.

Specifically, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are eyeing a potential 10 percent cut to the $16.5 billion TANF block grant, which has remained static since TANF’s creation in 1996—meaning it has already lost half its value due to inflation. As of 2020, TANF reached only 21 out of every 100 families eligible to receive support. A 10 percent cut would significantly limit TANF’s reach and further reduce the number of families receiving assistance. In addition to an across-the-board cut, some proposals indicate a plan by the majority to eliminate the TANF contingency fund, which provides funding to states during economic downturns.

To reduce the number of families eligible for TANF, congressional Republicans are also considering imposing even harsher paperwork requirements on program recipients. Work reporting requirements for TANF recipients were already tightened in 2023, but the proposals being considered now would go a step further by requiring adult TANF recipients to collect and submit documentation weekly cataloging work hours or certain work activities. As prior research demonstrates, work documentation requirements are ineffective and do not lead to increased employment; they only threaten benefit access for those who need it the most.

TANF cuts would not only strain families’ budgets but also limit the amount of funds allocated toward other statewide programs, which would cause significant holes in families’ already-strained budgets. TANF is the second-largest funding source for public child care nationwide, either through direct funding or through other child care funding sources, such as the Child Care and Development Fund. Cuts to the program would only worsen the child care access and affordability crisis for low-income families. Combined with the proposed elimination of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), an estimated 40,000 children would lose access to child care.

Eliminating the Social Services Block Grant would jeopardize state foster care and adoption supports

SSBG is a flexible grant to states that supports essential programming for children and families, such as child care or programs for child welfare and at-risk youth, among its 29 high-level service areas. In 2023, almost half of those served by SSBG were children.

SSBG is designed to support states in providing services for which there is no dedicated funding stream or where funding is inadequate. Eliminating funding for SSBG programs would leave major gaps in state child welfare agency budgets, leading to the loss of essential programming and services for low-income children. On average, SSBG represents more than 10 percent of federal child welfare funding in states, often funding critical programs such as child protective services and foster care. However, some states dedicate nearly their entire SSBG funding to child welfare services, underscoring its importance in funding child welfare programs.

Millions of families will be collateral damage if basic needs programs are defunded

The majority’s legislative options to gut these programs would have effects beyond failing children and their families’ basic needs. There would also be devastating secondary effects: Analysis shows that the proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would lead to more than 1 million lost jobs. Workers in health care and the food industry would lose their jobs without federal funds flowing through the system, and communities across the country would face additional economic downturn with the closure of rural hospitals and grocery stores, decreased tax revenue, and subsequent employment effects in industries such as construction and retail.

Parental job loss is one of the most catastrophic family events for a child—one that is proven to have adverse effects on children’s health. Parental joblessness in early childhood and longer joblessness even adversely affect a child’s physical and mental health later in life. Moreover, they are connected to an immediate and persistent decrease in academic achievement and increased instances of adverse childhood experiences.

Conclusion

Cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, and SSBG would gut basic supports for children. While specific policy implications are still uncertain, they would almost certainly add up to one of the largest-ever cuts to programs that support kids.

The authors would like to thank Kyle Ross, Bobby Kogan, Andrea Ducas, Natasha Murphy, Madeline Shepherd, Emily Gee, Colin Seeberger, Casey Peeks, Sachin Shiva, Steve Bonitatibus, and Audrey Juarez of the Center for American Progress for their assistance with this column.