For low-income people and their families, it’s been a hard, complicated week. On November 1, more than 40 million users of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, did not receive their monthly payments after the Trump administration refused to pay full benefits through emergency funding during the ongoing government shutdown. It would be better, the administration has decided, to weaponize hunger against Democrats, blaming the government shutdown, than to feed people.
On Monday, a court ordered that the Trump administration use contingency funds to fund SNAP, although the Trump administration said it would only fund half the regular amount. It’s unclear whether the White House, which has flip-flopped on SNAP several times in recent weeks, will pull a similar stunt in December if the government shutdown continues—or when the funds for this month will reach people.
And it’s not like the system was perfect. A recent report from the National Domestic Workers Alliance found that in September, 91 percent of domestic workers who responded to the survey—including nannies, home health care aides and house cleaners—said their households struggled with food insecurity in September, when SNAP payments were still in effect.
“The ripple effect on families, children, and communities is going to be enormous.”
“It’s so clear that it’s always the people who have the least amount of resources and power that end up being hurt the most,” National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo told me. “When you think about domestic workers and the multiple compounding impacts of these policy decisions that are coming from the federal government right now, the pressures are simply untenable.”
I spoke with Poo about the challenges domestic workers are facing at this time, which include food insecurity, low wages and the devastating chaos brought on by ICE raids.
What have you been hearing about the challenges domestic workers face in getting food with the Trump administration’s kerfuffle over SNAP benefits?
Even before the SNAP payments were an issue, the cost of food was a huge concern for domestic workers. Wages are not going up, but the cost of food is going up and the cost of everything that domestic workers need to survive, from transportation to housing. A huge number of domestic workers rely on SNAP because wages are so low.
There’s a tremendous amount of fear and concern about what is going to happen. And in an environment where there’s already food insecurity for domestic workers, who, by the way, are primary income earners for their families, the ripple effect on families, children, and communities is going to be enormous.
The other issue is that domestic workers make so little that they qualify for SNAP. What about ensuring that wages also go up?
It’s essential. This is a workforce where the demand for the work is increasing because we have a growing aging population, and more people who have illnesses like Alzheimer’s or dementia, or people with disabilities, who need assistance. The demand for this work is growing, but because the wages are so low, people cannot sustain themselves doing this work.
It’s also, by the way, work that can’t be outsourced or automated by AI. We all have an interest in making these jobs good jobs where you can earn a living wage and sustain yourself and your family. But right now, we have a constant turnover. There’s a 26 percent turnover rate for home care workers, for example, because the wages are so low and the people that we count on to take care of us and our families can’t even survive on the wages that they earn, let alone take care of their families. So raising wages for domestic workers is absolutely essential.
How is this uniquely important for undocumented domestic workers, who do not qualify for SNAP?
Undocumented workers are not eligible for public assistance at all. What is so concerning is that this administration is even trying to roll back the basic rights to minimum wage and overtime protections for domestic workers, specifically home care workers. So they’re not only threatening to raise costs and threatening essential programs, but also rolling back basic rights to wage protection that all of us take for granted when we go to work every day.
That is going to put even more pressure on this workforce, now, for undocumented domestic workers who are also being targeted in reckless ICE raids that are tearing families and communities apart with no due process. The pressures are also creating enormous mental and emotional health issues in our communities, and the ripple effects of that will be generational.
“It’s also, by the way, work that can’t be outsourced or automated by AI.”
That’s traumatizing. Not just for the workers and their families, but also for the families that they take care of. I hear from disabled people and older people who count on immigrant care workers as their main lifeline to dignity and to care. [They are] really just devastated by what is happening right now.
Food insecurity understandably impacts people’s ability to focus on and do their job well.
Having somebody who is hungry and worried about feeding their own children is an enormous amount of stress that will impact anybody’s ability to do their job well. That is why I think we all have an interest in making sure that funds are protected, that people’s health care is protected.
At the end of the day, we are all interconnected, and there’s nowhere that that’s more apparent than in the domestic setting, where we have workers who work inside of our own homes, taking care of the most precious elements of our lives, our children, our parents, our loved ones, and their well-being is fundamentally connected to our own. Food insecurity impacts everybody in that way, and we should all have a stake in making sure that people have the basic nutrition that they deserve.
There are going to be work requirements for SNAP starting soon. Do you have concerns that the administrative burden will impact domestic workers, leading to more food insecurity?
The problem with these work requirements is that, first of all, the vast majority of people who utilize programs like SNAP and Medicaid are working. Those who are not are not working for a reason. They’re either in caregiving situations where they cannot work because their caregiving responsibilities are so intense, or they’re disabled, or any number of very legitimate and valid reasons. There’s a whole myth about people not working that needs to be debunked.
The other thing about this is that the requirements are oftentimes so onerous that people are just unable to [meet them] and overcome all the red tape that is required. You have a lot of people who are falling off of Medicaid as a result of work requirements [in places] where they’ve been implemented already, and you’re going to see that when it comes to SNAP, where people who really do have a legitimate need, who this program was designed for, are going to be pushed off and pushed away, because the requirements [are] going to be so onerous. It just is not possible for people to keep up.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.