How people on Medicaid, SNAP, and Social Security could be hit

These safety nets were already under pressure—but now, the very logic of support for the vulnerable is under assault:

• Social Security freezes or reclassification: SSA databases are already being misused. Expect more errors, reclassifications, or audits aimed at reducing benefit rolls. In some cases, individuals are being falsely marked as deceased, deactivating their SSNs and leaving them legally invisible.
• Medicaid defunding: The administration is exploring ways to block-grant Medicaid—meaning states will get lump sums and can cut coverage as they wish.
• SNAP rollbacks: Work requirements are being proposed even for those with disabilities or caregiving responsibilities. Access to food is being used as a political weapon.
• Cost-shifting to states: Programs are being quietly transferred to state budgets without funding, prompting cuts, eligibility narrowing, or chaos in benefit access.
• Rhetoric of ‘undeserving’ poor: Propaganda is ramping up to paint recipients as lazy or fraudulent—priming the public to accept mass cuts without protest.

Historical analog: In the U.S. during the Reagan era, welfare recipients—particularly Black single mothers—were targeted as “welfare queens” to justify deep social spending cuts. Similar scapegoating patterns are resurfacing now.