By Ben Zdencanovic, University of California, Los Angeles

The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and their children and people with disabilities. It also helps foot the bill for long-term care for older people.

In late February 2025, House Republicans advanced a budget proposal that would potentially cut US$880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years. President Donald Trump has backed that House budget despite repeatedly vowing on the campaign trail and during his team’s transition that Medicaid cuts were off the table.

Medicaid covers one-fifth of all Americans at an annual cost that coincidentally also totals about $880 billion, $600 billion of which is funded by the federal government. Economists and public health experts have argued that big Medicaid cuts would lead to fewer Americans getting the health care they need and further strain the low-income families’ finances.

As a historian of social policy, I recently led a team that produced the first comprehensive historical overview of Medi-Cal, California’s statewide Medicaid system. Like the broader Medicaid program, Medi-Cal emerged as a compromise after Democrats failed to achieve their goal of establishing universal health care in the 1930s and 1940s.

Instead, the United States developed its current fragmented health care system, with employer-provided health insurance covering most working-age adults, Medicare covering older Americans, and Medicaid as a safety net for at least some of those left out.

Health care reformers vs. the AMA

Medicaid’s history officially began in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the system into law, along with Medicare. But the seeds for this program were planted in the 1930s and 1940s. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration was implementing its New Deal agenda in the 1930s, many of his advisers hoped to include a national health insurance system as part of the planned Social Security program.

Those efforts failed after a heated debate. The 1935 Social Security Act created the old-age and unemployment insurance systems we have today, with no provisions for health care coverage.

Nevertheless, during and after World War II, liberals and labor unions backed a bill that would have added a health insurance program into Social Security.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. He enthusiastically embraced that legislation, which evolved into the “Truman Plan.” The American Medical Association, a trade group representing most of the nation’s doctors, feared heightened regulation and government control over the medical profession. It lobbied against any form of public health insurance.

During the late 1940s, the AMA poured millions of dollars into a political advertising campaign to defeat Truman’s plan. Instead of mandatory government health insurance, the AMA supported voluntary, private health insurance plans. Private plans such as those offered by Kaiser Permanente had become increasingly popular in the 1940s in the absence of a universal system. Labor unions began to demand them in collective bargaining agreements.

The AMA insisted that these private, employer-provided plans were the “American way,” as opposed to the “compulsion” of a health insurance system operated by the federal government. They referred to universal health care as “socialized medicine” in widely distributed radio commercials and print ads.

In the anticommunist climate of the late 1940s, these tactics proved highly successful at eroding public support for government-provided health care. Efforts to create a system that would have provided everyone with health insurance were soundly defeated by 1950.

JFK and LBJ

Private health insurance plans grew more common throughout the 1950s.

Federal tax incentives, as well as a desire to maintain the loyalty of their professional and blue-collar workers alike, spurred companies and other employers to offer private health insurance as a standard benefit. Healthy, working-age, employed adults – most of whom were white men – increasingly gained private coverage. So did their families, in many cases.

Everyone else – people with low incomes, those who weren’t working and people over 65 – had few options for health care coverage. Then, as now, Americans without private health insurance tended to have more health problems than those who had it, meaning that they also needed more of the health care they struggled to afford.

But this also made them risky and unprofitable for private insurance companies, which typically charged them high premiums or more often declined to cover them at all.

Health care activists saw an opportunity. Veteran health care reformers such as Wilbur Cohen of the Social Security Administration, having lost the battle for universal coverage, envisioned a narrower program of government-funded health care for people over 65 and those with low incomes. Cohen and other reformers reasoned that if these populations could get coverage in a government-provided health insurance program, it might serve as a step toward an eventual universal health care system.

While President John F. Kennedy endorsed these plans, they would not be enacted until Johnson was sworn in following JFK’s assassination. In 1965, Johnson signed a landmark health care bill into law under the umbrella of his “Great Society” agenda, which also included antipoverty programs and civil rights legislation.

That law created Medicare and Medicaid.

From Reagan to Trump

As Medicaid enrollment grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives increasingly conflated the program with the stigma of what they dismissed as unearned “welfare.” In the 1970s, California Gov. Ronald Reagan developed his national reputation as a leading figure in the conservative movement in part through his high-profile attempts to cut and privatize Medicaid services in his state.

Upon assuming the presidency in the early 1980s, Reagan slashed federal funding for Medicaid by 18%. The cuts resulted in some 600,000 people who depended on Medicaid suddenly losing their coverage, often with dire consequences.

Medicaid spending has since grown, but the program has been a source of partisan debate ever since.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Republicans attempted to change how Medicaid was funded. Instead of having the federal government match what states were spending at different levels that were based on what the states needed, they proposed a block grant system. That is, the federal government would have contributed a fixed amount to a state’s Medicaid budget, making it easier to constrain the program’s costs and potentially limiting how much health care it could fund.

These efforts failed, but Trump reintroduced that idea during his first term. And block grants are among the ideas House Republicans have floated since Trump’s second term began to achieve the spending cuts they seek.

The ACA’s expansion

The 2010 Affordable Care Act greatly expanded the Medicaid program by extending its coverage to adults with incomes at or below 138% of the federal poverty line. All but 10 states have joined the Medicaid expansion, which a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made optional.

As of 2023, Medicaid was the country’s largest source of public health insurance, making up 18% of health care expenditures and over half of all spending on long-term care. Medicaid covers nearly 4 in 10 children and 80% of children who live in poverty. Medicaid is a particularly crucial source of coverage for people of color and pregnant women. It also helps pay for low-income people who need skilled nursing and round-the-clock care to live in nursing homes.

In the absence of a universal health care system, Medicaid fills many of the gaps left by private insurance policies for millions of Americans. From Medi-Cal in California to Husky Health in Connecticut, Medicaid is a crucial pillar of the health care system. This makes the proposed House cuts easier said than done.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ben Zdencanovic, University of California, Los Angeles

Read more:

• GOP lawmakers commit to big spending cuts, putting Medicaid under a spotlight – but trimming the low-income health insurance program would be hard
• Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people
• From FDR’s food stamps to Trump’s harvest boxes: The history of helping the poor get enough to eat

Ben Zdencanovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Feature Image: President Lyndon B. Johnson, left, next to former President Harry S. Truman, signs into law the measure creating Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. AP Photo

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By Matthew Borus, Binghamton University, State University of New York

An estimated 20% to 25% of Americans have a disability of some kind, including physical, sensory, psychological and intellectual disabilities.

Disability experts, myself included, fear that the Trump administration is creating new barriers for disabled people to being hired at a job, getting a quality education and providing for basic needs, including health insurance.

Here are four key areas of disability policy to watch over the coming years.

1. Rights at work

The Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990, requires that employers with more than 15 employees not discriminate against otherwise qualified candidates on the basis of their disability. It also requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to disabled workers. This means, for instance, that a new or renovated workplace should have accessible entrances so that a worker who uses a wheelchair can enter.

Despite these protections, I have spoken to many disabled workers in my research who are reluctant to ask for accommodations for fear that a supervisor might think that they were too demanding or not worth continuing to employ.

Trump’s actions in his first days in office have likely reinforced such fears.

In one of the many executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, he called for the relevant government agencies to terminate what he called “all discriminatory programs,” including all diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies, programs and activities that Trump deems “immoral.”

The next day, Trump put workers in federal DEIA and accessibility positions on administrative leave.

The following week, a tragic plane crash outside Washington, D.C., killed 67 people. Trump, without any evidence, blamed the crash on unidentified disabled workers in the Federal Aviation Administration, enumerating a wide and seemingly unrelated list of disabilities that, in his mind, meant that workers lacked the “special talent” to work at the FAA.

Advocates quickly pushed back, pointing out that disabled workers meet all qualifications for federal and private sector jobs they are hired to perform.

2. The federal workforce

Many government disability programs have complex rules designed to limit the number of people who qualify for support.

For instance, I study supplemental security income, a federal program that provides very modest cash support – on average, totaling US$697 a month in 2024 – to 7.4 million people who are disabled, blind or over 65 if they also have very low income and assets.

It can take months or even years for someone to go through the process to initially document their disability and finances and show they qualify for SSI. Once approved, many beneficiaries want to make sure they don’t accidentally put their benefits at risk in situations where they are working very limited hours, for example.

To get answers, they can go to a Social Security office or call an agency phone line. But there are already not enough agency workers to process applications or answer questions quickly. I spoke in 2022 with more than 10 SSI beneficiaries who waited on hold for hours while they tried to get more information about their cases, only to receive unclear or conflicting information.

Such situations may grow even more severe, as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk try to eliminate large numbers of federal employee positions. So far, tens of thousands of federal workers have been laid off from their jobs in 2025. More layoffs may be coming – on Feb. 12, 2025, Trump instructed federal agency heads to prepare for further “large-scale reductions in force.”

At the same time, multiple Social Security Administration offices have also been marked for closure since January 2025. An overall effect of these changes will be fewer workers to answer questions from disabled citizens.

3. Educational opportunities

Students with disabilities, like all students, are legally entitled to a free public education. This right is guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975. IDEA is enforced by the federal Education Department.

But Trump is reportedly in the process of dismantling the Education Department, with the goal of eventually closing it. It is not clear what this will mean for Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act enforcement, but one possibility is laid out in the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, a policy blueprint with broad support in Trump’s administration.

Project 2025 proposes that Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act funds “should be converted into a no-strings formula block grant.” Block grants are a funding structure by which federal funds are reduced and each state is given a lump sum rather than designating the programs the funds will support. In practice, this can mean that states divert the money to other programs or policy areas, which can create opportunities for funds to be misused.

With block grants, local school districts would be subject to less federal oversight meant to ensure that they provide every student with an adequate education. Families who already must fight to ensure that their children receive the schooling they deserve will be put on weaker footing if the federal government signals that states can redirect the money as they wish.

4. Health care

Before President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, many disabled people lived with the knowledge that an insurer could regard a disability as a preexisting condition and thereby deny them coverage or charge more for their insurance.

The ACA prohibited insurance companies from charging more or denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.

Republicans have long opposed the ACA, with House Speaker Mike Johnson promising before the 2024 election to pursue an agenda of “No Obamacare.”

About 15 million disabled people have health insurance through Medicaid, a federal health insurance program that covers more than 74 million low-income people. But large Medicaid cuts are also on the Republican agenda.

These deep cuts might include turning Medicaid into another block grant. They could also partly take the form of imposing work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, which could serve as grounds on which to disqualify people from receiving benefits.

While proponents of work requirements often claim that disabled people will be exempt, research shows that many will still lose health coverage, and that Medicaid coverage itself often supports people who are working.

Medicaid is also a crucial source of funding for home- and community-based services, including personal attendants who help many people perform daily activities and live on their own. This helps disabled people live independently in their communities, rather than in institutional settings. Notably, Project 2025 points to so-called “nonmedical” services covered under Medicaid as part of the program’s “burden” on states.

When home- and community-based services are unavailable, some disabled people have no options but to move into nursing homes. One recent analysis found that nursing homes housed roughly 210,000 long-term residents under age 65 with disabilities. Many nursing facilities are understaffed, which contributed to the brutal toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes.

In response to both the pandemic and years of advocacy, the Biden administration mandated higher staffing ratios at nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. But Republicans are eyeing repealing that rule, according to Politico’s reporting.

Daunting task

Tracking potential changes to disability policy is a complicated endeavor. There is no federal department of disability policy, for example.

Instead, relevant laws and programs are spread throughout what we often think of as separate policy areas. So while disability policy includes obvious areas such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is also vitally relevant in areas such as immigration and emergency response.

These issues of health care, education and more could impact millions of lives, but they are far from the only ones where Trump administration changes threaten to harm disabled people.

Different programs have their own definitions of disability, which people seeking assistance must work to keep track of.

This was a daunting task in 2024. Now it may become even more difficult.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Matthew Borus, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Read more:

• Why including people with disabilities in the workforce and higher education benefits everyone
• Trump’s claims of vast presidential powers run up against Article 2 of the Constitution and exceed previous presidents’ power grabs
• Parents with disabilities have faced discrimination for years in the US, but new rules will help ensure that child welfare systems treat them more fairly

Matthew Borus received funding in the past from ARDRAW, a small grant program for graduate students working on disability research. The program was run by Policy Research, Inc. and funded by the Social Security Administration. The opinions and conclusions expressed here are solely the author’s.

Feature Image: Disabled people’s employment rights and access to free health care are among the policy issues that the Trump administration is aiming to change. Catherine McQueen/Moment/Getty Images

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By Rabiah Burks, National Legal Aid & Defender Association 

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. Our membership is comprised of civil legal aid and public defense attorneys, community advocates, and clients. NLADA has pioneered access to justice at the national, state and local levels. A leader in the development of national standards for civil legal aid and public defense, NLADA also provides advocacy, training, and technical assistance for equal justice advocates across the country.

The following guide is intended to help explain some of the nuances of the impact of stop-work orders on civil legal aid and public defense. Today’s explainer builds on more than 114 years of NLADA’s work in the public defense and civil legal aid space. 

The impact of the attempted Federal Funding freeze on Civil Legal Aid and Public Defense Institutions

NLADA’s community of advocates—including civil legal aid, public defense, and representatives of low-income and marginalized communities—work daily to uphold the government’s commitment to safety and stability. This community both receives federal funding to provide services and in turn provides services to help clients access vital federally-funded supports.

At the heart of NLADA’s mission are individuals directly impacted by government policies who can not afford legal services. Civil legal aid and public defense stand in the gap providing those critical legal services and have been historically underfunded. And this is despite a glaring need for their services. The Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S. Department of Justice states that approximately 66% of felony federal defendants and 82% of felony defendants in large state courts were represented by public defenders or assigned counsel. According to the Legal Services Corporation, which administers federal funding to nonprofit legal aid organizations across the country, around 92% of low-income Americans are forced to address civil issues without proper legal assistance. Federal funding cuts will decimate an already fragile system and impact people’s ability to access legal representation and secure essential resources.

Federal funding is essential to fulfilling the government’s obligation to ensure safety and stability for people across the country.  This funding serves three primary functions:

• Direct Federal Purchases: The government acquires services and products to meet its responsibilities to the public.
• Direct Assistance to Individuals: Programs like Medicaid and Veterans benefits directly benefit individuals and families. Civil legal aid and public defenders ensure that people are not wrongfully denied access to these entitlements.
• Support for External Service Providers: Funds enable organizations (like civil legal aid and public defenders) to support community development, veterans’ services, and other essential programs.

NLADA’s legal advocates receive funding through direct grants or as sub-grantees of state and local government agencies. Various federal agencies provide millions of dollars in funding to support life-saving legal services including:

• Department of Justice
• Department of Veterans Affairs
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Health and Human Services
• Department of Education
• Social Security Administration
• And many more…

This funding helps ensure:

• Family stability through child welfare and family reunification services
• Holistic legal services that provide alternatives to incarceration
• Access to safe and affordable housing
• Education support, including special education plans and ending the school-to-prison pipeline
• Access to veterans’ benefits, food security, and employment assistance
• Critical healthcare, including opioid crisis intervention
• Protection against illegal debt collection

Impact of Other Recent Government Actions:

Recent executive orders and funding freezes have had a chilling effect on legal services nationwide. Without federal funding, offices nationwide would have to close, leaving millions of people without legal help.

These actions have:

• Disrupted Critical Services: We have heard from a veteran’s services program who had people coming in who were not able to access medication because healthcare access was frozen. The inability to access mental health services is critical, even one missed dose or consultation at its most devastating, can result in loss of life. But it also can set off a downward spiral that causes loss of employment, housing, and stability – you could view this also as a loss of life.”
• Impacted Legal Representation: Legal services providers, both civil and criminal, were unable to use funds that support time-sensitive and life-saving services. For example: acquiring protective orders in domestic violence cases, assisting with access to treatment services, and halting evictions and pursuing housing stability. They also were flooded with the need to help clients access direct support (SNAP, health care, housing), which reduced their ability to provide other life-saving services.
• Created Operational Uncertainty: Offices struggled to stay open, retain staff, and continue assisting clients amid funding freezes.
• Threatened Criminal Prosecution of Legal Professionals: Public defenders and legal aid attorneys face an environment of legal and ethical uncertainty in serving their clients. This country has decided that people are entitled to legal counsel in certain cases – in cases where someone is facing the full force of the state, in order to ensure fairness in the legal system.

Public defenders cannot refuse to represent people, regardless of immigration or any other defining characteristic that may be singled out. This is a constitutional right. This country also has decided that people facing immigration proceedings are entitled to legal representation, and for decades, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has provided funding for those services. Our legal advocates do not discriminate in choosing clients; they are bound by a code of ethics and commitment to serve millions of people in need of legal help in every part of this country.

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President Donald Trump’s administration on Jan. 29 rescinded a Project 2025-inspired order that had abruptly frozen most federal grants and loans, a sweeping directive that threw social service programs like Head Start, student loans and Medicaid into disarray.

The initial order, issued earlier in the week, sparked widespread confusion and disruption, prompting a swift legal challenge.

On Jan. 28, a federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze, and by the next day, the White House pulled back the directive altogether. The order’s reversal came after mounting pressure from lawmakers, advocacy groups and affected organizations.

The White House insisted the move was intended to “end any confusion” following the court’s injunction, but critics called it a political miscalculation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the administration backed down only because of public outcry.

“Americans fought back, and Donald Trump backed off,” Schumer said in a statement. “Though the Trump administration failed in this tactic, it’s no secret that they will try to find another, and when they do, it will again be Senate Democrats there to call it out, fight back, and defend American families.”

However, the administration made clear that its broader policies on federal funding remain intact. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that this was “NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” but rather a rollback of the memo itself to “end any confusion” created by the court’s ruling. “The President’s executive orders on federal funding remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented,” she added.

The initial freeze caused immediate uncertainty, particularly in Washington, D.C., and Republican-leaning states heavily reliant on federal funds.

Throughout Jan. 28, the White House attempted to clarify exemptions — such as Medicaid — but the damage had already been done.

Reports surfaced by people and organizations unable to access critical federal resources, heightening concerns about the real-world impact of the freeze.

The legal challenge that led to the order’s reversal was filed by Democracy Forward, a progressive nonprofit, which argued that the directive was an unconstitutional overreach that endangered millions of Americans.

“While we hope this will enable millions of people in communities across the country to breathe a sigh of relief, we condemn the Trump-Vance administration’s harmful and callous approach of unleashing chaos and harm on the American people,” said Skye Perryman, the organization’s CEO.

“Our team will continue to bring swift legal actions to protect the American people and will use the legal process to ensure that federal funding is restored.”

The uncertainty caused by the administration’s actions drew sharp criticism from organizations that rely on federal assistance.

Melicia Whitt-Glover, executive director of the Council on Black Health, warned that the confusion threatens health programs serving historically marginalized communities. “While the Council on Black Health is not fully reliant on federal funding, many of our partners are, and they now face disruptions that threaten their ability to continue their vital work. This impacts the communities we serve and exacerbates health inequities,” she said.

The administration’s actions have drawn scrutiny given the financial reliance of Republican-leaning states on federal aid. A MoneyGeek analysis found that seven of the 10 states most dependent on federal funding lean Republican, receiving an average of $1.24 for every dollar contributed, while blue states receive $1.14. 

New Mexico, a Democratic-leaning state, saw the highest return on federal spending at $3.42 per dollar contributed, while Delaware had the lowest at $0.46.

Public Citizen, a government watchdog group, called the original freeze an unnecessary crisis that harmed vulnerable Americans. Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the organization, said,  “The incompetence and cruelty of this order caused nationwide confusion and anxiety, as across the country regular Americans spoke out about the human impacts — the loss of jobs, essential services and harms to children among many other vulnerable populations.

“The White House overplayed their hand as they levied this Project 2025-inspired order and made it clear that they want to sow chaos and gut programs that help families. We will keep up the fight to make sure that does not happen.”

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By Dyana Mason, University of Oregon and Mirae Kim, George Mason University

On Jan. 27, 2025, the Trump administration ordered a freeze on federal grants and contracts covering a wide array of aid programs to take effect at 5 p.m. the following day. This freeze was partially prevented when a judge responded to a lawsuit filed by the National Council of Nonprofits and other organizations. The flow of funds on grants that had already been awarded was at least temporarily protected by the judge’s action. The attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia have also sued to block this funding freeze.

The Trump administration, which on Jan. 29 rescinded the memo ordering the funding suspension, has made clear that it may again seek to reduce or eliminate much of the money, totaling several hundred billion dollars, that funds many services that nonprofits provide, such as support for foster parents, after-school care and distributing food for free.

Dyana Mason and Mirae Kim, two scholars of nonprofits, explain the role that federal funding plays in the nonprofit sector.

How much do nonprofits rely on federal funding?

Nonprofits partner with the government to deliver social services, such as child care for low-income families, housing for people experiencing homelessness, and job training and placement. These partnerships can form with local or state governments, as well as with the federal government, with this collaboration mostly taking place through grants and contracts.

Government funding makes up about 33% of the revenue flowing into the nonprofit sector annually, according to the Urban Institute. The institute, a think tank, also found that nearly 40% of all nonprofits in the United States applied for federal grants in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and that about 10% applied for federal contracts. The share of government funding can be far larger for some kinds of social service nonprofits.

Many other nonprofits applied for local and state grants during that three-year period. Those grants, however, are often themselves funded by the federal government indirectly through grants it makes to state and local government agencies. Those agencies, in turn, then provide grants or maintain contracts with local nonprofits to provide services.

Although it’s hard to track with absolute precision due to those complex arrangements, government revenue is the second-largest source of income for nonprofits after the money these organizations and institutions earn through commercial activities.

Also called “fee-for-service,” this revenue includes the money nonprofit hospitals get when patients and insurers pay medical bills, nonprofit theaters receive when they sell tickets to performances, and nonprofit private schools obtain when parents pay tuition.

Some social service nonprofits charge fees too, typically on a sliding scale. That is, their clients with relatively higher incomes pay more, and those with extremely low incomes pay very little or nothing at all.

How could freezing federal funding affect nonprofits?

We have no doubt that a long freeze on federal grants and contracts would be devastating for nonprofits and the communities they serve.

For example, Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers hot meals to more than 2 million homebound people over 65 and helps them maintain social connections, gets 37% of its funding from the federal government.

Clackamas Women’s Services, a domestic and sexual violence organization based near Portland, Oregon, is one of the many local organizations that have expressed concern about what to expect. The group says it could lose half of its annual budget if federal funding were to be eliminated.

Without federal funding, organizations like these – many of which already have waitlists – would have to cut back on the services they provide.

What’s the role of nonprofits in the US safety net?

It’s very significant.

For the past several decades, attempts to scale back the size of the government have led to government agencies essentially hiring nonprofits to do much of their work.

Through contracts and grants, nonprofits then do such things as assist people who are recovering from fires, hurricanes and other disasters; provide services for veterans and active-duty members of the military; and help people with mental health conditions, including substance use problems, just to name a few.

This arrangement typically provides nonprofits with a reliable and predictable source of funds that they can use to serve their communities. But it can also leave them vulnerable to policy changes – especially when new administrations take over, as the second Trump administration’s actions illustrate.

Research we conducted about what happened to nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that volatility in the economy has serious effects on the ability of nonprofits to do their work.

For example, social service nonprofits struggled in March and April 2020 due to falling revenue at a time of increasing demand. Many of these organizations had to scale back their services. In some cases, they canceled them.

We followed up with another survey in November and December 2020. By then, we found, 61% of the groups had received forgivable federal loans through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.

Nearly half of the nonprofits told us that they had, in addition, received other forms of emergency funding from the federal government, including Economic Injury Disaster Loans and emergency food distributions.

This federal assistance made it possible for thousands of nonprofits to keep their staff employed and continue to provide important services as the economy recovered.

What happens when nonprofits lose federal funds?

It’s hard for social service organizations to replace federal funding.

Nonprofits can, of course, appeal to their donors to help bridge the gap. But donations from individuals, foundations, corporations and bequests only amount to no more than 15% of the funds flowing into the nonprofit sector.

The outcome of freezing, eliminating or scaling back federal funding for nonprofits would mean that those in need would get fewer services. We would also expect mass layoffs, which could harm the U.S. economy.

Nonprofits employ more than 12 million people in the United States. That’s more workers than big industries such as construction, transportation and finance employ. Should millions of them suddenly become unemployed, demand would grow further for social services from providers already unable to meet lower levels of demand due to funding cuts.

Has there ever been upheaval like this before?

Congress appropriates money to provide for the services that the public needs and demands. These moves have led to great fear and uncertainty among organizations that serve people in need in the United States and abroad.

Although it’s not unusual for funding priorities to change from one administration to the next, Donald Trump’s executive orders on international aid and nonprofit grants and contracts that underpin the U.S. safety net are unprecedented.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Dyana Mason, University of Oregon and Mirae Kim, George Mason University

Read more:

• Medical research depends on government money – even a day’s delay in the intricate funding process throws science off-kilter
• How nonprofits abroad can fill gaps when the US government cuts off foreign aid
• Getting services to people in need often relies on partnerships between government and nonprofits, but reporting requirements can be too onerous

Dyana Mason has received research funding from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities and the Joint Fire Science Program with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). She is also a volunteer board member of the Southwest Oregon chapter of the American Red Cross.

Mirae Kim is affiliated with the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) as a non-paid, at-large board member. 

Feature Image: Food pantry staff members and volunteers hand out food in Chelsea, Mass., in November 2024. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

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By Sylvia Lu, University of Michigan

Artificial intelligence harms, problematic social media content, data privacy violations – the issues are the same, but the policymakers and regulators who deal with them are about to change.

As the federal government transitions to a new term under the renewed leadership of Donald Trump, the regulatory landscape for technology in the United States faces a significant shift.

The Trump administration’s stated approach to these issues signals changes. It is likely to move away from the civil rights aspect of Biden administration policy toward an emphasis on innovation and economic competitiveness. While some potential policies would pull back on stringent federal regulations, others suggest new approaches to content moderation and ways of supporting AI-related business practices. They also suggest avenues for state legislation.

I study the intersection of law and technology. Here are the key tech law issues likely to shape the incoming administration’s agenda in 2025.

AI regulation: innovation vs. civil rights

The rapid evolution of AI technologies has led to an expansion of AI policies and regulatory activities, presenting both opportunities and challenges. The federal government’s approach to AI regulation is likely to undergo notable changes under the incoming Trump administration.

The Biden administration’s AI Bill of Rights and executive order on AI established basic principles and guardrails to protect safety, privacy and civil rights. These included requirements for developers of powerful AI systems to report safety test results, and a mandate for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create rigorous safety standards. They also required government agencies to use AI in responsible ways.

Unlike the Biden era, the Trump administration’s deregulatory approach suggests a different direction. The president-elect has signaled his intention to repeal Biden’s executive order on AI, citing the need to foster free speech. Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, has echoed this sentiment. He has stated his opposition to restrictive AI regulations and the adoption of a comprehensive federal AI law.

With limited prospects for federal AI legislation under the Trump administration, states are likely to lead the charge in addressing emerging AI harms. In 2024, at least 45 states introduced AI-related bills. For example, Colorado passed comprehensive legislation to address algorithmic discrimination. In 2025, state lawmakers may either follow Colorado’s example by enacting broad AI regulations or focus on targeted laws for specific applications, such as automated decision-making, deepfakes, facial recognition and AI chatbots.

Data privacy: federal or state leadership?

Data privacy remains a key area of focus for policymakers, and 2025 is a critical year to see whether Congress will enact a federal privacy law. The proposed American Privacy Rights Act, introduced in 2024, represents a bipartisan effort to create a comprehensive federal privacy framework. The bill includes provisions for preempting state laws and allowing private rights of action, meaning allowing individuals to sue over alleged violations. The bill aims to simplify compliance and reduce the patchwork of state regulations.

These issues are likely to spark key debates in the year ahead. Lawmakers are also likely to wrestle with balancing regulatory burdens on smaller businesses with the need for comprehensive privacy protections.

In the absence of federal action, states may continue to dominate privacy regulation. Since California passed the Consumer Privacy Rights Act in 2019, 19 states have passed comprehensive privacy laws. Recent state privacy laws have differing scopes, rights and obligations, which creates a fragmented regulatory environment. In 2024, key issues included defining sensitive data, protecting minors’ privacy, incorporating data minimization principles, and addressing compliance challenges for medium or small businesses.

At the federal level in 2024, the Biden administration issued an executive order authorizing the U.S. attorney general to restrict cross-border data transfers to protect national security. These efforts may continue in the new administration.

Cybersecurity, health privacy and online safety

States have become key players in strengthening cybersecurity protections, with roughly 30 states requiring businesses to adhere to cybersecurity standards. The California Privacy Protection Agency Board, for example, has proposed rulemaking on cybersecurity audits, data protection risk assessments and automated decision-making.

Meanwhile, there is a growing trend toward strengthening health data privacy and protecting children online. Washington state and Nevada, for example, have adopted laws that expand the protection of health data beyond the scope of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Numerous states, such as California, Colorado, Utah and Virginia, have recently expanded protections for young users’ data. In the absence of federal regulation, state governments are likely to continue leading efforts to address pressing privacy and cybersecurity concerns in 2025.

Social media and Section 230

Online platform regulation has been a contentious issue under both the Biden and Trump administrations. There are federal efforts to reform Section 230, which shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, and federal- and state-level efforts to address misinformation and hate speech.

While Trump’s previous administration criticized Section 230 for allegedly enabling censorship of conservative voices, the Biden administration focused on increasing transparency and accountability for companies that fail to remove concerning content.

With Trump coming back to office, Congress is likely to consider proposals to prohibit certain forms of content moderation in the name of free speech protections.

On the other hand, states like California and Connecticut have recently passed legislation requiring platforms to disclose information about hate speech and misinformation. Some existing state laws regulating online platforms are facing U.S. Supreme Court challenges on First Amendment grounds.

In 2025, debates are likely to continue on how to balance platform neutrality with accountability at both federal and state levels.

Changes in the wind

Overall, while federal efforts on issues like Section 230 reform and children’s online protection may advance, federal-level AI regulation and data privacy laws could potentially slow down due to the administration’s deregulatory stance. Whether long-standing legislative efforts like federal data privacy protection materialize will depend on the balance of power between Congress, the courts and the incoming administration.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sylvia Lu, University of Michigan

Read more:

• AI, cryptocurrencies and data privacy: Comparing the Trump and Harris records on technology regulation
• AI harm is often behind the scenes and builds over time – a legal scholar explains how the law can adapt to respond
• Reining in AI means figuring out which regulation options are feasible, both technically and economically

Sylvia Lu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Feature Image: The incoming Trump administration is poised to shake up tech regulation. Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images

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