The squeeze is on: Reporting on hunger, housing and child welfare as the safety net shrinks

As America’s social safety net continues to fray amid federal cuts, journalists face the daunting task of navigating an intense political debate while tracking the real-world impacts of diminishing government aid on low-income families and communities.

These are challenging stories, but reporting on this topic is critically important right now — not only to hold politicians responsible for how policies impact their constituents, but also because journalists have the power to influence the narratives that shape how social services are provided and to whom. 

Ultimately, reporting on safety net benefits is not just a question of how dollars are being spent and where, but of whether a child goes to school hungry or if a parent can receive lifesaving medical treatment. 

In a panel this week at the USC Center for Health Journalism’s 2026 National Fellowship, two reporters and a veteran researcher discussed their work and shared insights on the economic squeeze American families are now facing, providing reporting strategies and resources for reporters covering this topic in their own communities. 

Heather Hahn, associate vice president of the family and financial well-being division at the Urban Institute, said that America’s approach to social services has long been driven by two competing narratives. 

On the one hand, there is the notion that “no one should get a free lunch,” which suggests that people have a duty to work to meet their own needs and not rely on government benefits. On the other hand, the “no one goes hungry” philosophy promotes the idea that everyone deserves to have their basic needs met. Throughout our country’s history, the social safety net has waxed and waned in scope as different parties and their preferred narratives assume power. 

In the 1990s, for example, the safety net pullback was fueled in part by backlash to safety net gains during the civil rights movement, and Black Americans were often accused of abusing government assistance, Hahn explained. 

Then, during COVID, the policy narrative embraced the idea that everyone deserves emergency aid and stimulus payments were automatically sent to most households. As a result, the supplemental poverty measure, which takes into account the impact of government assistance, dropped down to a record low of around 8% in 2021 before rebounding the following year, when aid was rolled back.

“It really demonstrated that poverty is a policy choice,” said Hahn. 

Ongoing cuts to the safety net today have “a new flavor,” compared to previous pendulum swings. The current narrative in favor of cutting aid is fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment and accusations of fraud, Hahn said.

The “no free lunch” concept is once again gaining prominence, as reflected in the Trump administration’s addition of work requirements for Medicaid and expansion of such requirements in SNAP, she said.

Hahn argues that work requirements tend to decrease the rate at which people receive aid without having a measurable impact on employment rates. Research shows that most people receiving these benefits are already working if they are physically able to, she said. However, people who are juggling multiple jobs, fluctuating schedules or gig work often struggle to document hours accurately and consistently, she continued. 

As a result, people frequently lose benefits — not because they no longer qualify but because they cannot satisfy increasingly complex reporting requirements, she said.

The latest round of safety net cuts and reporting requirements are also taking place during a period of increasing income inequality and rising living costs, meaning that every additional cut to government assistance programs puts an even bigger squeeze on families’ budgets.

This is a concept that MassLive reporter and 2025 Data Fellow Will Katcher tackled head on in his recent series on food insecurity. 

He wanted to understand why Massachusetts, which has some of the highest incomes in the country, also has a significant population of people who don't know where their next meal will come from. 

One thing he quickly learned in talking to people at food banks is that when family budgets are squeezed, food is often the first item on the chopping block. 

“People have their rent, their medical bill, their cell phone, their child care,” he said. “Food is flexible in a way that's really unfortunate. As people are stretched and pushed to the end of their means, the food budget suffers.”

He also learned that income level is a flawed benchmark to determine whether people need food assistance.

For example, he shared the story of a single mother who worked at a hospital and made too much money to qualify for SNAP benefits, but not enough money to afford adequate food. This was in large part because of the high cost of housing, a common factor among people experiencing food insecurity in Massachusetts, he said. 

By analyzing Census data, he found that around one in six Massachusetts households spend at least half their income on rent.

Bryce Covert, a former National Fellow and a contributing writer at The Nation, also found that a lack of affordable housing was a critical topic in her reporting on the child welfare system.

She identified several states — including New Mexico, Georgia, and Missouri — where children were being removed from their families at a disproportionate rate due to inadequate housing. One mother she spoke to had her child taken away because her apartment didn’t have enough air conditioning and her landlord wouldn’t pay for a new unit.

When Covert was looking for ideas of what can be done differently, she found community groups that were having success in using government funds to help keep families together by providing housing assistance.

This reporting is an example of how journalism can challenge the narratives around government aid. 

It suggests that while policymakers may feel more comfortable paying foster parents than providing rental aid to low-income parents, the latter is often better for child well-being and ought to be prioritized. Poor-quality housing for families with children is often not the result of parental neglect, but rather an unfortunate consequence of the cost of living and lack of affordable housing, she said.

This is why it's so important that journalists build close relationships with people impacted by social services and listen closely to what they have to say about why our current systems are failing them, Hahn said. 

“Our narratives about why people experience poverty shape our policies, and those policies then shape the realities of what it is to experience poverty,” she said. “Journalism has the power to both reflect and influence those narratives, the policies, and ultimately the realities.”