The Trump Administration Has Changed Almost Every Aspect of Food Stamps
This expose on how the Trump administration has reshaped the SNAP program reveals biopolitics at work. The question of "who lives, who dies" unfolding slowly through "who eats." It is a brutal read.
It was sad to read how the program is now creating obstacles for single-mother families; though I couldn't help but think that the program helped to create, and does not just reflect, the American malaise of single-person households, how difficult it was to apply if you lived in a collective house, especially if that was extended family, but also if that was chosen family or an affinity group.
"Human services" also appears emblematic of all computer-mediated labor post-2020 when one interviewee comments:
āOn the one hand, we are facing a doubling, in some cases, of the workload, and on the other hand, fewer resources to actually fund that workload."
I feel like this is what everyone with a job feels like the past year, double the work, and no help for it. New digital recordkeeping requirements that take time, but no time allotted, new wordy generative AI texts that must be read and decoded, loose ends, dead ends, an expectation to "whip up a graphic", all these aspects of starting over through the day. Still everyone with a job is happy to have their job. Because as this article makes clear, it is tough out there.
That fear is also biopolitics at work.
Link below is "unlocked" but Tumblr doesnt display previews for Unlocked articles... copy and paste.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/us/trump-administration-food-stamps.html?unlocked_article_code=1.d1A.KZSF.EfoDJw2Q0GDd&smid=nytcore-android-share















