People in Marsha Keene’s community are already struggling to cover the basics.

Most of the clients Keene serves at the Susanna Wesley Family Learning Center in southeast Missouri are working but still rely on federal food assistance to keep up with ever-increasing costs.

The center provides a domestic violence shelter, parenting education and summer camps to struggling families stretched thin by living expenses. Keene, the center’s CEO, worries about how her clients can absorb significant cuts to food stamps, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“I don’t see communities just being able to absorb that need,” she said. “I don’t know what the impact is going to be yet, but I cannot imagine that it’s going to be good.”

Billions in cuts to federal food assistance are looming as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a major tax and spending package that would slash federal spending on domestic programs to extend tax cuts passed during President Donald Trump’s first term. U.S. House Republicans passed the package in a 215-214 vote, and it’s now before the Senate.

Federal cuts squeeze already-struggling food banks, school lunch programs

Cuts to SNAP would affect residents of every state in all types of communities, but advocates fear the fallout could especially hit rural people, who are more dependent on food stamps, the largest anti-hunger program in the nation.

The legislation that passed the House would cut food assistance by an estimated $300 billion, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. One key provision of the bill would expand work requirements to include people between 55 and 64 years old and those with children aged 7 or older. It would also tighten rules for counties with high unemployment rates.

Together, the changes would remove more than 3 million Americans from the program in an average month, reducing spending by more than $92 billion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The legislation will likely face changes in Senate negotiations. The measure was endorsed in a letter signed by 20 of the nation’s 27 Republican governors.

A greater share of rural residents currently rely on SNAP than those in metropolitan areas, according to the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit focusing on hunger and health among the impoverished. Rural hunger is already on the rise and grocery stores face an uphill battle to keep going in the most isolated parts of the country.

In her corner of Missouri, Keene said, limited job opportunities leave many workers struggling to cover housing and grocery bills. Nearly a quarter of residents live below the poverty line in Mississippi County — almost double the state and national averages.

She recalled her own recent trip to the grocery store, where high prices caused her to forgo items on her list such as orange juice and meat. “And I have a pretty good job,” she said.

“The SNAP cuts are definitely going to make an impact because we already have hungry kids.”

‘I’d probably close the doors’

The National Grocers Association has opposed the potential cuts, saying SNAP provides not only critical food, but also meaningful boosts to local employment and economies. The organization, which represents retail and wholesale grocers, said cuts will particularly hurt independent and rural stores.

“Cutting SNAP would harm the most vulnerable Americans and threaten the viability of community grocery stores that are depended upon by their local economies and neighborhoods,” the association said in a May statement.

Facing competitive pressures from online retailers and big-box stores with lower prices, rural grocery stores are already struggling to remain viable.

But deep cuts to SNAP would have an uneven impact on rural stores.

For Kay Voss, the cuts would be catastrophic at her Stratton Country Market in southwest Nebraska. She estimates 40% of sales are paid for with SNAP.

“I’d probably close the doors,” she said.

That’s a possibility with or without federal changes: Struggling to turn a profit in the town of about 340 people, Voss said the market likely won’t last much longer.

“There’s nothing to be made on the grocery side,” she said.

Several grocery store operators interviewed by Stateline were more optimistic. Some said they believed locals were using their federal benefits at chains in nearby cities for cheaper prices or anonymity.

‘The lifeblood of the community’: States invest to save rural grocery stores

Tasha Malay, one of the owners of Malay’s Market in western Kansas, said SNAP made up less than 2% of the store’s sales last year.

While she believes cuts to the federal program are “a terrible idea” broadly, she said it won’t make a huge difference for her store.

“I think the people that qualify are utilizing it, but I think that they’re spending the dollars elsewhere,” she said.

Profit margins are famously slight in the grocery industry, especially for rural stores facing an onslaught of competition from dollar stores whose bulk purchasing allows them to offer much lower prices.

“When they’re operating on such thin margins anyways, that could have a huge impact on whether or not the store can remain open,” said Carlie Jonas, a policy associate at the nonprofit Center for Rural Affairs.

The center has worked with lawmakers to preserve rural grocery stores, which provide locals with social connections in addition to fresh meat and produce. Proposed legislation to fund $2 million in rural grocery assistance did not win approval from the Nebraska legislature because of the state’s challenging budget cycle, Jonas said.

That figure, though, pales in comparison to new costs Nebraska could face if the proposed SNAP changes are enacted.

One component of the federal legislation would shift billions of costs from the federal government to states to administer SNAP.

A Nebraska-based think tank estimates the state would have to spend at least $39 million a year to make up for the lost federal funds.

“Every single state is going to have to make some really difficult decisions,” Jonas said.

Federal cuts affect regional food access; more uncertainty to come

In Wisconsin, state officials estimate the changes would cost the state $314 million per year.

“This is over a quarter billion dollars each year that Wisconsin couldn’t use for our health care, our roads, our schools, or our economy,” Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna said in a May statement.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, downplayed the impacts of the changes.

“We are not cutting SNAP,” he said May 25 on CBS News’ political show “Face the Nation.” “We’re working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse. SNAP for example, listen to the statistics, in 2024, over $11 billion in SNAP payments were erroneous.”

A PolitiFact breakdown published May 29 disputed Johnson’s remarks, concluding that three independent analyses show millions of people could lose SNAP benefits.

‘It’s time to sound the alarm’

Food insecurity is already on the rise in rural America.

Even in heartland areas where farming is central to the local economy, many have trouble accessing fresh and affordable food.

“We’re seeing food insecurity across the entire state rise, but really disproportionately in our more rural areas,” said Tim Williams, government affairs and advocacy officer at Food Bank for the Heartland, an Omaha, Neb.-based nonprofit serving 93 counties across Nebraska and Iowa.

Williams said cuts to the SNAP program will drive up demand on food banks, especially in rural areas that have long struggled with access and transportation to secure fresh foods. In sparsely populated areas such as western Nebraska, it’s difficult to get to grocery stores — if they exist at all.

“There are counties in the state where there are more cows than people, and so things are very spread out,” he said. “They can be very difficult to get to. Sometimes there’s only one pantry or one grocery store in a county.”

The federal food program works in tandem with food banks to keep people from going hungry, Williams said. And cuts to federal aid will unquestionably affect nonprofits.

“It will put a disproportionate burden on the charitable food system that they can’t sustain because they’re already seeing too many people,” he said.

Susie Boelter, executive director of the North Country Food Bank, said it’s time to expand food assistance — not cut it. She told the North Dakota Monitor her nonprofit has experienced “staggering increases” in need over the past three years.

For every meal the food bank provides across its 21-county service area in North Dakota, SNAP provides nine, she said.

“Any additional cuts will put a ton of pressure on our emergency food system,” Boelter said. “Food banks are good at getting food into the hands of people who need it, but it’s time to sound the alarm.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Anna Pesek saw a federal program supporting local food purchases as much more than a boost to her Iowa pork and poultry farm.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture grant program that allowed schools and food banks to buy fresh products from small farms helped her forge new business relationships. It allowed her to spend more with local feed mills and butchers, and was starting to build a stronger supply chain of local foods.

But now that the Trump administration has yanked the funding, she worries that rural economic boost might end too.

“With the razor-thin margins on both sides, those partnerships are just really hard, if not impossible, to sustain,” she said.

The co-owner of Over the Moon Farm, Pesek said her operation was never entirely reliant on the local food programs; it represented about 10% of her business. While she knew the federal money wouldn’t last forever, she was planning on the funding lasting through 2028 — but then the Trump administration last month nixed more than $1 billion for local food programs.

The federally funded Local Food Purchase Assistance and the Local Food for Schools programs, both begun during the pandemic, focused on small, local farms in aims of building stronger domestic food supply chains. Grants allowed schools and food banks to buy meat, dairy and produce from small farms — including many healthy products that are often too expensive for those institutions.

USDA’s local food programs specifically aided some of the nation’s most disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, including newcomers, small farmers and those who have faced racial discrimination.

Federal cuts squeeze already-struggling food banks, school lunch programs

The local food programs were initially funded by 2021’s American Rescue Plan Act but were later expanded by the Biden administration. The Trump administration, though, has cut the funding that went to thousands of small farms, saying that it’s instead “prioritizing stable, proven solutions that deliver lasting impact.”

Pesek noted that the federal government has subsidized commodity agriculture like corn and soybeans for more than a century.

“It’s not a novel idea, right? This is how the relationship between the federal government and farmers has looked,” she said. “And so all this program did was allocate some of the funds to go to different kinds of farmers versus just commodity farmers.”

Just after cutting the local food programs, USDA announced it was expediting $10 billion in direct payments to commodity farmers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, which helps farmers offset high input prices and low sale prices for crops. The White House is reportedly considering billions more in farm subsidies as President Donald Trump escalates global trade wars.

Andy Ollove, food access program director at Fresh Approach, a California nonprofit that works on building a healthier and more resilient food system, said the government’s long-standing farm subsidies flow to some of the nation’s biggest operators. Conversely, the local food programs benefited small farmers and communities directly.

“The economic multiplier to this program just seems way more impactful than the traditional subsidy model of the USDA that the administration is continuing to invest in,” he said. “It’s just a giveaway.”

Fresh Approach has helped administer the food bank program in California. While implementation delays mean farmers won’t lose access to the program as quickly as in other states, he expects elimination of the program to put small farmers out of business across the country.

Some states have launched their own local food programs, but nothing on the scale of the federal investment. That’s left advocates for small farmers, local foods and food banks pushing for reinstatement of the federal program or getting it included in the next round of farm bill negotiations, when Congress outlines a five- or six-year spending plan for the nation’s food policy and agriculture sector.

Ollove expects philanthropists will fund parts of California’s program after federal money is depleted. But it won’t have the same reach.

“I do feel confident that these types of programs will continue in California … sporadically and piecemeal,” he said. “But not in the way that we’re administering it, in a way that I think is changing a lot of things and improving the food system.”

A mixed response from states

The noncompetitive USDA local food grants allowed many new farmers to break into markets. And the aid for food hubs, which link small producers to larger markets, helped farmers distribute products to schools and food banks.

In Wisconsin, for example, more than half of the nearly 300 farmers who benefited from the food bank program were early career farmers, according to state officials.

In Illinois, the state prioritized funds toward socially disadvantaged farmers, such as those who have faced racial or ethnic prejudice.

“Attacking this program was really an attack on Illinois’ most vulnerable, whether it’s a socially disadvantaged farmer or the food recipient,” said Kristi Jones, deputy director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

Her department administered the federal food bank program, which helped beginning farmers get their businesses off the ground.

“A lot of these farmers, they’re living their dreams,” she said. “They are living their goals because of this program.”

Illinois had been planning on nearly $15 million from the next round of funding for the food bank program. Jones said farmers already had begun planning and spending on seeds and equipment.

“You just don’t put something on the ground and have the product the next day,” she said. “ … So that uncertainty was incredibly challenging for farmers who already deal with enough uncertainty.”

Democratic leaders have bashed the Trump administration’s decision: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, for example, called it “a slap in the face to Illinois farmers and the communities they feed.”

But conservative leaders in other states have downplayed the cuts.

In Texas, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller characterized USDA’s decision as “a reassessment.”

He said the state was not dependent on the federal funds and would continue its Farm to School and Farm to Food Bank programs, which encourage the local purchase of Texas agricultural products.

“There’s always room for refinement, and we may see a revised version of the policy down the road that is even better for agriculture producers,” he said in a statement last month.

Texas funds programs to help distribute excess food to schools, food banks and charities. But it does not have a grant program like USDA’s to help those organizations purchase local food, said Marshall Webb, spokesperson for the state agriculture department.

Iowa’s agriculture department recently started its own local food program.

The Choose Iowa program has made about $300,000 available to support local food purchases — though the state lost out on about $11.3 million because of the federal cuts.

Don McDowell, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship, said the agency would continue to ask lawmakers to expand funding for the Choose Iowa program.

“Programs designed to forge relationships between Iowa farmers, food hubs, food banks and schools are important to our farmers and communities,” he said.

Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Heley Lehman said his organization, which represents family farmers and ranchers, would like to see the state step in to fill the void.

“But we don’t anticipate that that’s going to be an easy thing for the state of Iowa to do,” he said. “So not only is it local farmers that are feeling like they’ve had the rug pulled out from underneath them, but the state of Iowa has, too.”

Creating a new food system

In Southern California, Dickinson Family Farms has worked to gather produce from dozens of small farms across the region, allowing even the smallest operators without distribution capabilities to sell to local food banks.

Democrats and Republicans take on soda, but they’re using different tactics

Andrew Dickinson, who owns the farm with his father, said the federal local food program also helped reduce food waste. Farmers were able to get fair market prices for vegetables with cosmetic damage or fruits deemed too small or large for grocery store shelves.

Dickinson said the federal program has provided a reliable marketplace for small operators that otherwise depend on more inconsistent sales streams like farmers markets.

“It will create a vacuum,” he said.

About 60 miles east of Los Angeles, sixth-generation farmer Anna Knight said the federal funds were much more than a handout to farmers. To her, they were about creating a new kind of food system.

She said supporting local producers creates more supply chain resilience — something many people didn’t appreciate until the pandemic.

“We don’t want to go back to that world,” she said. “When we invest in our local food system, we’re really investing on onshoring our food production system, on making new food systems local and increasing their resiliency in moments of crisis.”

Old Grove Orange, her California farm, has been supplying citrus to some local school systems for years. But she said the federal funds were the “single biggest changemaker” for pushing schools to buy local for the first time.

To her, that’s key in promoting lifelong healthy eating: Local produce like her freshly picked oranges pack more of a nutritional punch and just taste better than produce that takes weeks to ship from abroad.

“When you are giving a child a delicious piece of fruit, you are really cultivating their palate for life,” she said. “You are setting this expectation of what a fruit is supposed to taste like, and you are sparking this love for fruits and vegetables for the rest of their life.”

Knight said the nation doesn’t have to choose between big and small farms. But small farms are vanishing all around her.

“This is a ticking bomb,” she said. “The clock is running out if we don’t really find a way to help make these small, medium-sized farms sustainable.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

South Dakota state Sen. John Wiik likes to think of himself as a lookout of sorts — keeping an eye on new laws, programs and ideas brewing across the states.

“I don’t bring a ton of legislation,” said Wiik, a Republican. “The main thing I like to do is try and stay ahead of trends and try and prevent bad things from coming into our state.”

This session, that meant sponsoring successful legislation banning cities or counties from creating basic income programs, which provide direct, regular cash payments to low-income residents to help alleviate poverty.

While Wiik isn’t aware of any local governments publicly floating the idea in South Dakota, he describes such programs as “bureaucrats trying to hand out checks to make sure that your party registration matches whoever signed the checks for the rest of your life.”

The economic gut punch of the pandemic and related assistance efforts such as the expanded child tax credit popularized the idea of directly handing cash to people in need. Advocates say the programs can be administered more efficiently than traditional government assistance programs, and research suggests they increase not only financial stability but also mental and physical health.

Still, Wiik and other Republicans argue handing out no-strings-attached cash disincentivizes work — and having fewer workers available is especially worrisome in a state with the nation’s second-lowest unemployment rate.

South Dakota is among at least six states where GOP officials have looked to ban basic income programs.

The basic income concept has been around for decades, but a 2019 experiment in Stockton, California, set off a major expansion. There, 125 individuals received $500 per month with no strings attached for two years. Independent researchers found the program improved financial stability and health, but concluded that the pandemic dampened those effects.

GOP lawmakers like Wiik fear that even experimental programs could set a dangerous precedent.

“What did Ronald Reagan say, ‘The closest thing to eternal life on this planet is a government program’?” Wiik said. “So, if you get people addicted to just getting a check from the government, it’s going to be really hard to take that away.”

Momentum for Basic Income Builds as Pandemic Drags On

The debate over basic income programs is likely to intensify as blue state lawmakers seek to expand pilot programs. Minnesota, for example, could become the nation’s first to fund a statewide program. But elected officials in red states are working to thwart such efforts — not only by fighting statewide efforts but also by preventing local communities from starting their own basic income programs.

Democratic governors in Arizona and Wisconsin recently vetoed Republican legislation banning basic income programs.

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County to block a pilot program that would provide $500 per month to 1,900 low-income people in the state’s largest county, home to Houston.

Paxton, a Republican, argued the program is illegal because it violates a state constitutional provision that says local governments cannot grant public money to individuals.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat, called Paxton’s move “nothing more than an attack on local government and an attempt to make headlines.”

Meanwhile, several blue states are pushing to expand these programs.

Washington state lawmakers debated a statewide basic income bill during this year’s short session. And Minnesota lawmakers are debating whether to spend $100 million to roll out one of the nation’s first statewide pilot programs.

“We’re definitely seeing that shift from pilot to policy,” said Sukhi Samra, the director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which formed after the Stockton experiment.

So far, that organization has helped launch about 60 pilot programs across the country that will provide $250 million in unconditional aid, she said.

Despite pushback in some states, Samra said recent polling commissioned by the group shows broad support of basic income programs. And the programs have shown success in supplementing — not replacing — social safety net programs, she said.

The extra cash gives recipients freedom of choice. People can fix a flat tire, cover school supplies or celebrate a child’s birthday for the first time.

“There’s no social safety net program that allows you to do that.” she said. “ … This is an effective policy that helps our families, and this can radically change the way that we address poverty in this country.”

Basic income experiments

The proliferation of basic income projects has been closely studied by researchers.

Though many feared that free cash would dissuade people from working, that hasn’t been the case, said Sara Kimberlin, the executive director and senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab has tracked more than 150 basic income pilots across the country. Generally, those offer $500 or $1,000 per month over a short period.

“There isn’t anywhere in the United States where you can live off of $500 a month,” she said. “At the same time, $500 a month really makes a tremendous difference for someone who is living really close to the edge.”

Kimberlin said the research on basic income programs has so far been promising, though it’s unclear how long the benefits may persist once programs conclude. Still, she said, plenty of research shows how critical economic stability in childhood is to stability in adulthood — something both the basic income programs and the pandemic-era child tax credit can address.

Over the past five years, basic income experiments have varied across the country.

Last year, California launched the nation’s first state-funded pilot programs targeting former foster youth.

In Colorado, the Denver Basic Income Project aimed to help homeless individuals. After early successes, the Denver City Council awarded funding late last year to extend that program, which provides up to $1,000 per month to hundreds of participants.

Despite pandemic pay boost, low-wage workers still can’t afford basic needs

A 2021 pilot launched in Cambridge, Massachusetts, provided $500 a month over 18 months to 130 single caregivers. Research from the University of Pennsylvania found the Cambridge program increased employment, the ability to cover a $400 emergency expense, and food and housing security among participants.

Children in participating families were more likely to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, earned higher grades and had reduced absenteeism.

“It was really reaffirming to hear that when families are not stressed out, they are able to actually do much better,” said Geeta Pradhan, president of the Cambridge Community Foundation, which worked on the project.

Pradhan said basic income programs are part of a national trend in “trust-based philanthropy,” which empowers individuals rather than imposing top-down solutions to fight poverty.

“There is something that I think it does to people’s sense of empowerment, a sense of agency, the freedom that you feel,” she said. “I think that there’s some very important aspects of humanity that are built into these programs.”

While the pilot concluded, the Cambridge City Council committed $22 million in federal pandemic aid toward a second round of funding. Now, nearly 2,000 families earning at or below 250% of the federal poverty level are receiving $500 monthly payments, said Sumbul Siddiqui, a city council member.

Siddiqui, a Democrat, pushed for the original pilot when she was mayor during the pandemic. While she said the program has proven successful, it’s unclear whether the city can find a sustainable source of funding to keep it going long term.

States look to expand pilots

Tomas Vargas Jr. was among the 125 people who benefited from the Stockton, California, basic income program that launched in 2019.

At the time, he heard plenty of criticism from people who said beneficiaries would blow their funds on drugs and alcohol or quit their jobs.

“Off of $500 a month, which amazed me,” said Vargas, who worked part time at UPS.

Tomas Vargas Jr. was among the 125 people who participated in the 2019 basic income experiment in Stockton, Calif. Vargas, pictured here with his family, said the $500 a month allowed him to be a better father and take off time to pursue a better career. Courtesy of Tomas Vargas Jr.

But he said the cash gave him breathing room. He had felt stuck at his job, but the extra money gave him the freedom to take time off to interview for better jobs.

Unlike other social service programs like food stamps, he didn’t have to worry about losing out if his income went up incrementally. The cash allowed him to be a better father, he said, as well as improved his confidence and mental health.

The experience prompted him to get into the nonprofit sector. Financially stable, he now works at Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

“The person I was five years ago is not the person that I am now,” he said.

Washington state Sen. Claire Wilson, a Democrat, said basic income is a proactive way to disrupt the status quo maintained by other anti-poverty efforts.

“I have a belief that our systems in our country have never been put in place to get people out of them,” she said. “They kept people right where they are.”

Wilson chairs the Human Services Committee, which considered a basic income bill this session that would have created a pilot program to offer 7,500 people a monthly amount equivalent to the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in their area.

The basic income bill didn’t progress during Washington’s short legislative session this year, but Wilson said lawmakers would reconsider the idea next year. While she champions the concept, she said there’s a lot of work to be done convincing skeptics.

In Minnesota, where lawmakers are considering a $100 million statewide basic income pilot program, some Republicans balked at the concept of free cash and its cost to taxpayers.

“Just the cost alone should be a concern,” Republican state Rep. Jon Koznick said during a committee meeting this month.

State Rep. Athena Hollins, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, acknowledged the hefty request, but said backers would support a scaled-down version and “thought it was really important to get this conversation started.”

Much of the conversation in committee centered on local programs in cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, a Democrat, told lawmakers the city’s 2020 pilot saw “groundbreaking” results.

After scraping by for years, some families were able to put money into savings for the first time, he said. Families experienced less anxiety and depression. And the pilot disproved the “disparaging tropes” from critics about people living in poverty, the mayor said.

Carter told lawmakers that the complex issue of economic insecurity demands statewide solutions.

“I am well aware that the policy we’re proposing today is a departure from what we’re all used to,” he said. “In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about it.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Washington state lawmakers last year dedicated a record $400 million to the state’s Housing Trust Fund, which distributes loans and grants to create affordable housing.

But that was only a one-time infusion, said Democratic state Rep. April Berg.

“What we heard from communities is that we need to know, year over year, that we can actually start doing projects and money will be flowing,” she said.

To create a long-term revenue stream, Berg has proposed raising taxes on the most expensive real estate transactions, an increasing nationwide trend sometimes dubbed a “mansion tax.”

Her legislation would increase the state’s tax on property sales above $3 million while decreasing the tax rate for less expensive sales. The change is estimated to create an additional $300 million in revenue each biennium, said Berg, chair of the House Finance Committee.

“This will be transformative for affordable housing,” she said.

But development and real estate interests in Washington and across the country argue that higher transfer taxes will drive up the cost of housing for tenants as well as for wealthier homebuyers, since the taxes often apply to apartment buildings in addition to single-family homes. At a time of already limited supply and high interest rates, they say, that is the wrong approach to improving the affordable housing crisis.

“You can’t make housing more affordable by making it more expensive,” House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, a Republican, told the Washington State Standard.

Washington’s current tax has four tiers. The portion of the sales price up to $525,000 is taxed at 1.1%; that ranges upward until the portion above $3.025 million is taxed at 3%.

Berg’s proposal would expand the first tax tier to include property sales up to $750,000 and tack on another 1% tax on the portion of sales prices that exceed $3.025 million.

Desperate for affordable housing, some cities sweeten tax breaks for developers

Called real estate transfer or real estate excise taxes, these one-time fees on the sale or purchase of property have been a fixture of many state tax codes for decades. But local and state governments are increasingly looking to create a “mansion tax” targeting the higher ends of the real estate market.

So far, 15 mostly left-leaning cities and counties and eight states have approved that type of tax, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

These explicitly progressive taxes, which impose the biggest burdens on higher earners, largely have been popular among policymakers and voters, said Andrew Boardman, a policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy who has studied the issue.

But the idea has led to litigation in several states.

In Santa Fe, nearly three-quarters of voters in November approved a new 3% tax on residential property sold for $1 million or more. But the Santa Fe Realtors association is challenging the move in court.

Similarly, Los Angeles voters approved a mansion tax measure last year. But it faces both a court challenge and a proposed statewide ballot measure that would dismantle the tax.

But officials continue to embrace the idea to tackle the nation’s growing housing challenges.

Next month, Chicago voters will decide whether to approve Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Bring Chicago Home referendum, which would increase the real estate transfer tax on expensive properties.

And legislators in Massachusetts are weighing a bill that would allow cities to impose their own real estate transfer fee.

‘A tipping point’

Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey introduced a $4.12 billion housing bill in October that would, among dozens of policy changes, allow cities to create their own tax on the sale of homes above $1 million.

It’s similar to pending stand-alone legislation sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Mike Connolly.

Similar efforts failed in the past amid widespread opposition, including from Healey’s predecessor, Republican Charlie Baker. But Connolly said the idea may finally gain traction this year, since even some in the real estate industry have voiced support as housing prices skyrocket.

“It does feel to me like we’re reaching a tipping point where perhaps some of the reflexive opposition to raising new kinds of revenue is starting to give way to just pure desperation,” he said. “Massachusetts is a state where so many people are finding it impossible to continue to live.”

His legislation came at the request of local cities including Boston and Cambridge. If approved, it would allow — but not require — cities to tax 0.5% to 2% on the portion of property transactions over $1 million. The bill includes a carve-out that allows communities with a median home price under $750,000 to levy the tax on all sales above the median sale price.

Desperate for affordable housing, some cities sweeten tax breaks for developers

The “damn good idea” would give cities flexibility, said Democratic state Sen. Jo Comerford, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill.

Comerford represents communities in the western portion of the state that have struggled to maintain reliable tax bases.

“You’re fighting to keep teachers and firefighters employed,” she said. “But they want to develop affordable housing very badly. In fact, their survival depends on them developing affordable housing because we’re losing population in Western Massachusetts.”

But such transfer taxes don’t target the root cause of the affordability crisis, said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation, a pro-business research organization.

“Policies that increase the cost of housing and then try to use some of the revenue to subsidize housing are not solving the fundamental problem,” he said. “The single biggest reason why housing prices are so high is because there is an inventory problem.”

Even when targeting more expensive properties, Walczak said these taxes affect the entire market by increasing the costs and scarcity of housing.

“There is a point at which these costs will drive out high earners, or particularly with a tax on property sales, encourage them to look to purchase elsewhere where such taxes are not in place,” he said.

Voters weigh mansion taxes

On March 19, Chicago voters will weigh the mayor’s plan to triple the current real estate transfer tax on residential and commercial property sales between $1 million and $1.5 million and quadruple the tax for properties above $1.5 million to fund homelessness services. The tax on properties below $1 million would decrease.

Chicago currently levies a 0.75% transfer tax on all property transactions. Under the referendum, the tax rate for properties under $1 million would drop to 0.6%, but rates of 2%-3% would be levied on the portion of the sale price above $1 million.

That’s if the proposal survives a legal effort to knock the issue off the ballot.

The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, which has hundreds of office building owners and managers among its members, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Amy Masters, the association’s director of government and external affairs, said the tax change would deal another blow to the city’s commercial real estate sector, which is still reeling from the pandemic.

Downtown office buildings are facing record vacancy rates of about 23% as few post-pandemic workers go into an office every day, she said.

“When we look at empty space in the downtown area, if you can picture 16 Willis Towers of empty space that gives you an idea of what we’re facing right now,” she said, referring to the city’s tallest building, formerly known as the Sears Tower.

Masters said the referendum campaign has not provided details about how its projected $100 million in annual proceeds will be spent.

“All of us want to support and find ways that we can help the homeless,” she said. “But we can’t do it on the backs of the real estate industry. Because not only does it hurt our industry, it ends up hurting every resident in every neighborhood in the city.”

Those concerns have been disputed by Bring Chicago Home, the campaign pushing for the referendum.

Jose Sanchez Molina, the campaign’s communications adviser, said spending millions of dollars each year to address homelessness will make the city a more enticing place for real estate investment.

“It’s going to make the city an even more attractive place to want to do business.”

As homeless people become more visible, some cities and states take a tougher line

While specific programs haven’t been identified, Sanchez Molina said a committee that includes homeless individuals and service providers would set priorities to help the city’s more than 68,000 people who are experiencing homelessness on the street or in a shelter or temporarily staying with someone else.

“The ballot question on March 19 is simple: Do we want to help people get out of the cold and into a home?” he said.

In Santa Fe, the new tax will raise an estimated $6 million annually for the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

Thousands of low-income residents have been pushed out of the city as the median home price has topped $700,000, said Johanna Gilligan, a member of the steering committee that organized the campaign and an officer at Homewise, a nonprofit that provides services such as homebuyer education and down payment assistance.

The new tax will provide a more reliable and larger source of revenue for the city’s affordable housing trust fund, which currently receives about $3 million per year in city funds.

“We think it’s a really significant change,” Gilligan said.

But the Santa Fe Association of Realtors wants to block the tax. In court, the organization argues that property is not a good or service subject to an excise tax under state law.

Donna Reynolds, the association’s government affairs director, said the tax also risks depressing local home sales. She said the real estate market is a major economic driver — a factory the campaign largely ignored.

“There was no analysis done at all to determine what that impact might be,” she said. “They somehow believe the market can take lots of hits and keep on going.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Just weeks after lawmakers in Little Rock passed legislation shielding certain state records from public disclosure, opponents launched an effort to amend the Arkansas Constitution to protect access to government documents.

“The coalition that’s coming together on this is about as broadly bipartisan as you could get — from the extreme, extreme right to the hard, hard left and all the way in between,” said Nate Bell, a Republican-turned-independent and member of Arkansas Citizens for Transparency, which is pushing the constitutional amendment. “Folks who’ve been bitter political enemies for decades have joined together on this.”

Arkansas is one of several states this year that made more information secret by altering public records laws, often known as Freedom of Information Acts, or FOIAs. State officials say they are being overwhelmed with records requests, sometimes meant to harass lawmakers.

But the changes have alarmed press freedom and open government activists. Such exemptions to open records provisions can hamper journalists’ efforts to reveal the cost and behind-the-scenes details of governing decisions and make it harder for constituents to hold state officials to account.

Travel records can reveal who has influence with top leaders. Emails and text messages among government officials can reveal candid motivations for policy changes, political hypocrisy and even corruption.

Reviewing early drafts of proposed legislation allows reporters to track how politicians and lobbyists shape the law. And accessing police records, including body camera footage, provides tangible evidence of incidents such as police shootings — which can contradict official characterization of events.

Florida this year enacted a new law exempting the past and future travel records of the governor and other leaders from public disclosure. Arizona increased the price of providing certain police records and made it easier to close legislative records. And North Carolina legislators made rule changes that critics say will allow them to disclose or hide records at their own whims.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed her state’s new law in September; it exempts from public disclosure records and communications concerning the security of the governor and other elected leaders.

She sought the change after an Arkansas blogger sued the state for being denied records he sought on the security of the governor, her use of a state plane and a trade mission to Europe earlier this year. Critics said it went too far by cutting off access to documents such as receipts and reimbursements that would not risk the governor’s personal safety.

Initially, Sanders also sought to shield communications between the governor’s office and cabinet secretaries as well as documents “revealing the deliberative process” of state agencies. Sanders characterized this year’s legislation as “a great starting place” and “just the beginning.”

Those comments motivated people including Bell, a former Arkansas lawmaker who is a lead organizer of the Arkansas group that is aiming to put an amendment on the 2024 ballot. The measure, which is still being drafted, would enshrine the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act into the constitution and require a public vote for future changes.

“Government of, by and for the people is utterly dependent upon the people knowing what’s happening,” Bell said, “not just knowing what’s been done, but knowing how it’s being done, with whom it’s being done, and the process whereby it’s being done.”

But Arkansas Republican state Sen. Bart Hester said his legislation to protect security records was aimed at ensuring officials’ safety, arguing that bad actors can rely on past behaviors to anticipate future behaviors.

“So, it’s not reasonable or rational — in fact, I’d say it’s crazy for someone to ask for her security detail plans,” he said.

With state agencies overwhelmed with records requests, Hester said he’s interested in new legislation limiting the numbers of requests agencies must handle at any given time — rather than requiring them to respond within a certain number of days. He said a cap would allow school districts and state departments to focus on their core responsibilities, while still requiring them to eventually respond to requests.

After George Floyd’s murder, more states require release of police disciplinary records

The governor’s office did not say what kind of future changes Sanders would pursue with the state’s records law. In a statement, spokesperson Alexa Henning said Sanders was “proud that the legislature passed a law with bipartisan support to ensure the sources and methods used by law enforcement to protect constitutional officers and her family are protected.” Two Democrats, one in the House and one in the Senate, voted for the final bill.

Aside from changes in state laws, open government advocates on both sides of the aisle say it’s becoming more difficult to access government documents. Agencies can sometimes charge exorbitant fees for records production or resist outright, pushing disputes to the courts.

“Whether you are a Liberty Mom, or an election denier, or an everyday citizen who’s upset about how much your county board is spending on gravel or a reporter or a lawyer or a Black Lives Matter activist — whatever your motive, that should not matter under the law,” said Nebraska Democratic state Sen. Danielle Conrad. “Citizens have a right to know what their government is doing in their name and with their money.”

She introduced legislation this year aiming to further open access to public records. Her legislation did not advance but will be considered again next year. It would reduce fees for records, offer a waiver of fees for certain requests and make police body camera footage public following grand jury proceedings.

Conrad said the problems span from the governor’s office to local school boards. She’s worried that agencies that resist records requests are only fostering skepticism in government and democracy itself.

“I’ve heard from just countless citizens about their frustration with these processes,” she said.

Legislatures protect themselves

Arizona Republican state Sen. John Kavanagh acknowledged the vital role of Arizona’s open records laws. But he said they’re subject to “horrible abuse” because people rain requests on local governments and state agencies — sometimes to harass officials, other times just undertaking “fishing expeditions.”

“That’s the price you pay for open government,” he said. “The problem is: Where do you draw the line?”

At the same time, the proliferation of police body cameras has increased requests for recordings of high-profile shootings and incidents, Kavanagh said.

He introduced legislation that passed earlier this year allowing agencies to charge up to $46 per hour for the review, redaction and distribution of police videos. Kavanagh said reviewing those videos has become “unbelievably labor intensive.” Incidents that involve multiple officers require hours of review time as officials redact certain elements like faces of witnesses.

In another new law, the Arizona legislature allowed state officials to shield information such as home addresses from public disclosure, which Kavanagh said stemmed from growing safety concerns.

Early in the session, Republicans voted to change rules in both legislative chambers allowing legislators to delete their emails every 90 days and text messages at any time if members believe the “reference value has been served,” the Arizona Capitol Times reported.

North Carolina lawmakers ended their session with a similar move.

Tucked more than 500 pages deep in a 625-page budget bill was a new provision allowing lawmakers to exempt legislative records from public release. Legislators decide which documents are released — and which are withheld, destroyed or sold, according to the legislation.

A last-minute addition, the measure has sparked bipartisan backlash in North Carolina.

“I don’t really know anybody outside the legislature who thinks this is a good idea,” said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the conservative John Locke Foundation.

House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, did not respond to request for comment. But last month, he defended the move, telling reporters that members of the General Assembly were overwhelmed with requests designed “to add to cost and harassment.”

“It’s a massive change,” said Brooks Fuller, executive director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition. “It undermines the public access to any document that touches the hands of an individual legislator.”

Fuller, who is also an assistant professor of journalism at Elon University, said the move has sparked widespread confusion among lawmakers. Some have publicly committed to following previous practice of releasing most records, but the new rules have not been widely tested.

Protecting governors’ records

Like Arkansas, Florida this year closed access to some gubernatorial records.

The Sunshine State, which has long touted one of the nation’s most liberal public records laws, created one of the most significant records exemptions in decades by blocking access to the publicly funded travel records of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president.

“That would be bad enough — travel records — but they made it retroactive,” said Barbara Petersen, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability. “So we can’t get any records now, even for travel that took place three years ago or travel that [former Republican Gov.] Charlie Crist did as governor.”

Republicans said the change in Florida law was a matter of protecting public officials. But Petersen, whose organization supports local reporting and access to public records, said it is far too broad.

Politicians love to cite crime data. It’s often wrong.

Aside from travel plans or costs, Petersen said, the law prevents disclosure of who the governor travels with, and who visits the governor’s office and the governor’s mansion. In September, The Washington Post reported on undisclosed trips DeSantis took on private jets, revealing “his proclivity for luxury travel and leisure time with wealthy donors.”

“There’s no accountability there,” Petersen said. “We don’t know who’s paying for the plane. We don’t know what the plane costs.”

Florida Republican state Sen. Jonathan Martin, who authored the legislation, did not respond to a request for comment. A DeSantis spokesperson did not answer questions but pointed to the governor’s comments at a May news conference, where he said the issue was one of security.

“You’re in a situation, unfortunately, where these movements are watched,” he said.

Even with a strong law on paper, access to public records has greatly diminished under DeSantis in practice, Petersen said. Citizens and reporters wait months, even years for responses — or have to undertake costly lawsuits to secure public information.

“The ability to access public records in Florida has significantly declined,” she said. “There are reporters who have waited nine, 10, 14 months for a public record. I can only think that’s by design.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.