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Luisa S. Deprez is professor emerita of sociology and social policy at the University of Southern Maine. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications.
34,000 Mainers are expected to lose Medicaid benefits, and 101,000 households are expected to lose SNAP benefits. These are lifelines for Maine families — not only for immediate health and food security, but for economic stability across our communities.
These projections come from Visualizing H.R. 1 Cuts Data Dashboard, the recently launched Maine Children’s Alliance’s (MCA) response to the passage of H.R. 1, President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The law represents a major shift in federal policies supporting poor, low-income, and working families as it aims to reduce public program enrollment and expenditures.
The impact of the cuts will reach deep into Maine: the 53,999 households that rely on both Medicaid and SNAP will be hit hardest. Per capita funding losses will be highest in the rural counties of Washington, Somerset, and Franklin.
The Maine Legislature has its work cut out for it as it opens up work sessions and deliberations on LD 2212, a bill which aims to make supplemental appropriations from the general fund and elsewhere to ensure the proper operations of state government for the coming years.
Their challenge will be to lessen, if not prevent, the negative impacts of H.R.1 on Maine households.
While some may assume that H.R.1 is designed to only target the 11% of poor households in Maine who are wrongly accused of being solely “dependent” on safety net programs, it does not. We are all affected. It will, without doubt, further exacerbate the already precarious position that confronts too many Mainers.
At present, approximately 29% of working families in Maine are below the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) threshold. These are households with incomes above the federal poverty line but with not enough income to afford basic expenses — housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and technology — in the county where they live. Households forced to make impossible choices — deciding whether to pay for utilities or a car repair, whether to buy food or fill a prescription.
These are many of the people who work to keep our economy functioning smoothly: child care providers, food service workers, cashiers, personal care aides, delivery drivers, nurses’ aides, health care counselors, teachers. They represent all demographic groups and their stories capture the systemic and structural barriers to financial stability as well as the struggles and resilience of families experiencing financial hardship.
The implications of H.R.1 funding cutbacks and program eligibility changes cannot be ignored; the impact on Maine households, on Maine, will be too great. By 2034, Maine’s loss of federal Medicaid and SNAP funding is estimated to result in a corresponding 444% increase in the SNAP share of the state budget.
A recent article in the Portland Press Herald shows that the ramifications of H.R.1, coupled with rising prices in just about every arena, are not going unheard. Issues of “affordability” have moved “into the heart of lawmaking.” Shifting federal policy and economic uncertainty are “making it harder for families to get ahead” said Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick. “Maine people” she said in a written statement, “are doing everything right — working hard, caring for their families, and contributing to their communities — but too many are still being squeezed by rising costs they can’t control.”
While Democrats and Republicans may offer different solutions — hopefully more bipartisan ones than not — the issue is now deservedly in the headlines.
You can also be an active part of this dialogue: speak up about your situation, share your story with your legislator, circulate the MCA dashboard to others to increase awareness and use the data in testimony, briefings, or community engagement, write letters to the editor, and importantly, advocate for policies that safeguard Maine children’s health, food security, and family economic stability.
Maine needs you now to get this right! Make your voice heard.