New York City is home to millions who depend on Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Social Security to survive. For working-class and low-income families across the five boroughs, these programs mean the difference between getting medication, feeding children and keeping a roof overhead.
According to American Progress, the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” has gutted these lifelines. Medicaid faces over $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, “eliminating at least 10.5 million people from [Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program] by 2034.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that “approximately 16 million people could end up uninsured” due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cutting Medicare by $490 billion.
New work requirements force adults up to age 64 to work 80 hours monthly or lose benefits, penalizing people who have difficulty finding employment or lacking reliable transportation to work. In its post, American Progress concluded, “Congress is making historic cuts to essential services to give tax cuts to the wealthy.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has committed $40 billion to bail out Argentina. This includes $20 billion from the U.S. Treasury and another $20 billion arranged from private banks and sovereign funds.
The administration has already spent an estimated $45 million on a military parade celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary that coincided with President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. The parade featured 6,600 soldiers, 150 military vehicles and 50 aircraft flyovers.
This is happening during a period where military families are struggling with increasing childcare costs and housing issues.
There is also the plan to build a $300 million ballroom, which demolished the East Wing of the White House.
The donor list reads a registry of corporations seeking favorable treatment from the government. Major defense contractors like Lockheed Martin contributed alongside tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. Cryptocurrency companies Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also donated, as did tobacco giant Altria Group. With no federal approval required, the project began with the tearing down of a historic structure that housed the first lady’s offices since 1977.
And hours before 42 million Americans faced delays to their SNAP benefits on Nov. 1, Trump threw a lavish “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party on Oct. 31.
Approximately 1.7 million New Yorkers rely on SNAP benefits to put food on their tables. Nearly 39% of SNAP recipients are children and 20% are elderly Americans. The average household receives about $350 monthly in benefits that typically get used entirely within the month they are received.
New Yorkers know that in a city where the costs for housing, food and healthcare continue to rise, Trump’s misplaced priorities will come at the expense of the working class. All the welfare programs face new requirements and funding cuts that will push New York families toward poverty. The city’s hospitals will face increased strain as millions lose Medicaid coverage.
Schools will see more hungry children as SNAP benefits disappear. Community organizations will struggle to fill gaps that federal programs once covered. Nonprofit food pantries are already reporting that they cannot meet increased demand.
Medical debt will rise as preventable conditions go untreated and chronic illnesses worsen without consistent care. Working parents will have to choose between paying rent and buying groceries. Seniors will ration their medications to make prescriptions last longer.
These are no longer abstract policy debates, but daily survival decisions forced upon millions of Americans.
The Trump administration claims these cuts eliminate waste and fraud, that work requirements will encourage employment and reduce dependency.
However, the real waste is spending billions of dollars on projects that ignore Americans losing food assistance. The bill prioritizes a foreign bailout over American families, spectacle over survival, celebration over its citizens.
These choices reveal who this administration truly serves. Corporate donors gain access and influence through ballroom contributions. Defense contractors and tech giants buy goodwill while ordinary hard-working Americans lose the healthcare and food assistance that keeps them alive.
Real America First policies mean putting the wellbeing of American citizens before all else — policies that provide affordable healthcare without bankruptcy, food security for children and dignity for the elderly.
“America First” means supporting the working class who built this country, not the corporations extracting wealth from it.
Until policy matches rhetoric, the slogan is a marketing tactic that shields the same old priorities in nationalist language.
The consequences are visible in every corner of the country, in every family that loses coverage and in every child who goes to school hungry.
Americans all around this country deserve a government that puts them first.
