Nobel economist: Trump just made life worse for America’s poor

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump vowed to protect Social Security, Medicare and other safety-net programs. But since returning to the White House, his policies have defunded the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Obamacare subsidies.

In a column posted on his Substack page on March 3, liberal economist Paul Krugman warns that Trump's decision to go to war with Iran will make life worse for the poor in the United States.

"Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School estimates that Trump's largely unsuccessful bombing campaign last year against the Iran-backed Islamist Houthis in Yemen — a far softer target than Iran itself — cost between $2.76 billion and $4.95 billion," Krugman explains. "Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump's one-day strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities, cost between $2.04 billion and $2.26 billion. The current war is being waged not only with massive bombing, but also, with the use of large numbers of expensive interceptors to defend U.S. bases and U.S. allies against Iranian drones and missiles."

Krugman continues, "So in just a few days, we have surely incurred billions of dollars in cost. And if this war continues for an extended period, the costs could easily rise to the 20-to-30-billion-dollar range."

The former New York Times columnist notes that "U.S.-style war" is "incredibly expensive."

"Conservatives complain constantly about the level of federal spending, claiming that we are spending more than we can afford on social programs," Krugman observes. "Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposes harsh cuts in nutritional and healthcare assistance, supposedly because the cost of food stamps and Medicaid is excessive. This, despite the fact that study after study has shown that the long run costs of not providing food stamps and Medicaid are far higher than the cost of providing them. And if we compare the cost of this war to what we spend to help needy Americans, then it's clear that this war is extremely expensive compared with other ways we could have spent the funds."

Krugman continues, "Put it this way: SNAP — the Supplemental Nutritional Food Assistance Program, formerly food stamps — spends an average of about $2400 a year per recipient. CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program administered under Medicaid, provides comprehensive health care for about $3000 per child. So just replacing those three jets shot down over Kuwait — each of them, remember, with a price tag of $97 million — will cost about as much as providing 125,000 Americans with crucial food aid or providing healthcare to 100,000 American children. And the war might very well end up costing 100 times as much as the price of those jets."