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Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
After passage of Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill,' some low-income workers ask: How will I support my family?
Trump's so-called Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up All told, this legislation will Advertisement 'Any time any sort of social safety nets are defunded, it makes me mad. Especially when I know that the savings from those cuts are going to the super-elite rich class, it's even more maddening,' said Talbot, 41, whose wife is a Navy veteran on disability. Advertisement He can't even think about his daughters' college funds or saving for retirement, he said, because he's so focused on day-to-day survival. 'It makes me scared to think about how I will support my family if things get harder than they are,' he said. The Trump administration has said the bill will eliminate 'waste, fraud, and abuse' and notes that the In Massachusetts, one of the most expensive states in the country, Several hundred thousand more rely on insurance purchased through the Health Connector, the state marketplace set up under the Affordable Care Act. More than 300,000 residents could Advertisement Lisa Ragland and other workers from Service Employees International Union protested the Republican Medicaid cuts near the US Capitol building in June. Joe Raedle/Getty About 175,000 people are at risk of losing some or all of their food stamp benefits due to expanded work requirements and the termination of benefits for immigrants here legally who fled persecution, many of whom are on a track to get a green card. For Christiana Haramut, the uncertainty of if or how her benefits could be affected is the hardest part. Haramut was working as a recovery coach in Holyoke until she was appointed guardian of her now 3-year-old grandson and went back to school. She receives food stamps and MassHealth, in addition to cash assistance and a housing subsidy, and worries that every safety net could be at risk, including the Social Security her parents rely on. 'I'm assuming it will be under attack soon if it isn't already,' she said. The drop in federal funding, coupled with increased work verification requirements and other administrative tasks, could have a big impact on access for working families if states don't increase staff and IT funding, said Victoria Negus, senior economic justice advocate at the Law Reform Institute. Massachusetts has the resources to mitigate the worst harms of the measure, she said, although it will require new investments. The law also changed how benefits are calculated in the future, Negus said, essentially freezing in place anything beyond cost-of-living updates. Data about changing shopping habits, for instance, such as the fact that most people now buy canned beans instead of less expensive dried beans, will no longer be factored in. 'The bill is the largest handoff of dollars from folks who are struggling to those who are wealthy,' Negus said. 'And the way that handoff happens is both clear-cut – slashing eligibility for SNAP and Medicaid – and very nefarious, by implementing changes that cut at the knees the ways that states like Massachusetts have tried to make these programs work better.' Advertisement Data show that the Among the biggest employers of people receiving benefits, the agency found, are major retail, restaurant, and grocery store chains such as Amazon and Walmart – led by billionaires Jeff Bezos and the Walton family, respectively, who stand to benefit greatly from tax breaks in the bill. For the top fifth of all earners, these changes will result in an average 2.3 percent boost in after-tax income over the next decade, according to a the Advertisement In Massachusetts, Dunkin' had the highest number of workers on SNAP, the GAO reported, and the state employed the most people receiving Medicaid. Dunkin' did not respond to a request for comment. A state spokesperson said that Massachusetts 'will continue to ensure people receive the benefits they are eligible for and understand how these changes might affect them.' The PCA Workforce Council, the state entity that employs personal care attendants to help elderly and disabled residents, also had a high number of workers receiving both types of benefits. The 58,000-person workforce, comprising largely women of color, including many immigrants, generally makes between $20 and $22 an hour, and the majority of them are on MassHealth or subsidized Health Connector insurance, according to their union. Care attendants' fluctuating hours and complicated employer status – hired by individuals but paid by the state – make eligibility requirements particularly complicated, said Rebecca Gutman, vice president of home care at 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. And this will surely be intensified by new paperwork requirements. 'PCAs struggle every day with balancing the pay that they're receiving, putting food on the table, taking care of their kids, accessing health insurance,' Gutman said. 'This law is absolutely going to exacerbate wage inequality in our country, and it's going to hit women and people of color the hardest.' Personal care assistant Fe Guidry swept the kitchen floor in the New Bedford apartment of her client, Aquilina Gili. MARK STOCKWELL FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE Fe Guidry, 70, lives in New Bedford and works as a personal care assistant for two elderly women. But one of them is often gone, either in Florida or the Philippines, leaving her with just 14 hours of work a week. She needs every cent of her $89 monthly SNAP benefits to buy groceries, she said: Advertisement 'The price of the commodities now is always rising.' Low-income workers are already plagued with anxiety about being able to feed and care for their families, said Alicia Fleming, executive director of the economic justice nonprofit Massachusetts Jobs With Justice. And the still-unknown effects of the bill are adding more stress. 'I think what we're seeing now,' said Fleming, who relied on fuel assistance and day care vouchers when she was a young single mother, 'is that our society is set up to create an environment where corporations can thrive and the people who support those corporations, the workers, they struggle to survive.' This story was produced by the Globe's team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter . Katie Johnston can be reached at
Time of India
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
What is ICEBlock app that is topping charts on iPhones in the US and whose developer has been warned by Attorney General Pam Bondi; remember DOJ is 'looking at him'
People protest at a demonstration organized by the Service Employees International Union protesting ICE detentions, in New Orleans, Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) ICEBlock, an iPhone app designed for anonymously reporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent sightings, has soared to one of the top spots in Apple's U.S. App Store rankings, fueled by controversy sparked by the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi 's remarks. The app, which allows users to share and receive real-time alerts about ICE sightings within a 5-mile radius while maintaining anonymity, gained traction overnight after Bondi criticized it recently. According to ICEBlock's developer Joshua Aaron , he made the app to counter the Trump administration's deportation policies, which Aaron compares to Nazi Germany. The app has found a strong user base in Los Angeles, where approximately 20,000 users have reported frequent ICE raids in recent weeks, according to CNN. What ICEBlock app description says Stay informed about reported ICE sightings, within a 5 miles radius of your current location, in real-time while maintaining your privacy. ICEBlock is a community-driven app that allows you to share and discover location-based reports without revealing any personal data. Attorney General Pam Bondi warns ICEBlock app's developer Speaking on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Bondi accused the app of potentially endangering law enforcement officers and slammed CNN for 'promoting' it, stating, 'Shame on them.' By Tuesday afternoon, ICEBlock had become one of the most downloaded free iPhone apps in the U.S. The app's description emphasizes its community-driven approach: 'Stay informed about reported ICE sightings, within a 5 miles radius of your current location, in real-time while maintaining your privacy. ICEBlock allows you to share and discover location-based reports without revealing any personal data.' However, the app has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement advocates. Border Czar Tom Homan, speaking on 'The Will Cain Show,' called ICEBlock 'disgusting,' arguing it makes law enforcement's job more dangerous. 'Any network that covers that is disgusting as well,' Homan added. As ICEBlock's popularity surges, the debate over its impact on public safety and immigration enforcement continues to intensify. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
The Hill
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Unions are right to stand with immigrants against ICE deportations
Conservatives and anti-union forces are hammering labor unions for our role in the demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and Saturday's 'No Kings' rallies. But unions, including controversial Service Employees International Union California president David Huerta, are doing what we should be doing — standing up for our members and for workers as a whole against the enemies of labor. Labor's biggest mistake of the modern era was to allow the destruction of millions of industrial jobs without effective resistance. President Trump spoke the truth about deindustrialization in his 2017 Presidential Inaugural Address when he said, 'Rusted out factories [are] scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation … One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind.' It was Big Labor's disgraceful acquiescence to this catastrophic assault on American workers' livelihoods that has allowed Trump to pose as the friend of the American worker. He has successfully channeled workers' legitimate anger and resentment in the direction of immigrants instead of against the big businesses who destroyed America's industrial working class. While the labor movement in Los Angeles and in California is being criticized for our sympathies for so-called 'illegal aliens,' immigrants (legal or not) make up one-third of California's labor force. Most of California's 'illegals' arrived in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, many fleeing horrific U.S.-backed Central America dictatorships and the civil wars those regimes created. Most came too late to take advantage of President Ronald Reagan's 1986 immigration amnesty but are law-abiding and pay taxes in numerous ways and forms. Why would we turn our backs on them? As a trade unionist, the immigration status of my union brothers and sisters is of no import. The Trump Administration and the big business interests it serves seek to divide working people, but workers as a whole will either move forward together or fall back together. Attacks on one part of the working class cannot, over time, benefit the other parts. A major line of attack against labor argued by Aaron Withe, CEO of the anti-union Freedom Foundation, conservative investigative reporter Robert Schmid and others is that the average American is being forced to help finance the anti-ICE movement because the SEIU other unions resisting ICE 'rely on taxpayer-funded dues.' But this is not taxpayer money. It is workers' wages, and we have the right to do whatever they want with it, just as if we worked in the private sector. Moreover, union dues is money well spent. For example, in March, 2023 the SEIU and United Teachers Los Angeles jointly struck the Los Angeles Unified School District. Our picket lines held, SEIU won large pay increases and an extensive expansion of healthcare benefits for part-time employees, and UTLA won a good contract as well. Conservatives are almost unanimous in their condemnation of Huerta, who spent three nights in detention and is charged with conspiracy to impede an officer — a felony carrying a sentence of up to six years in prison. But Huerta was doing exactly what a good labor leader should be doing — putting himself out front and, if necessary, in harm's way for the benefit of his members and of workers. The fact that people on both the left and the right were so surprised by Huerta's incarceration is reflective of modern America's ignorance about labor history–effective labor leaders have usually had to risk incarceration. During the massive strikes that built organized labor in the 1930s, there were many workers and union leaders attacked, jailed, and even killed by police and National Guard. In 1948, John L. Lewis, combative leader of the United Mine Workers, was found guilty of criminal and civil contempt of court for failing to end a coal strike. In 1964, under then-Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, truckers won the first National Master Freight Agreement, a national over-the-road contract said to have brought more workers into the middle class than any other single event in the history of labor organizing. In a long-running, politically-motivated prosecution by Robert F. Kennedy, who called the Teamsters the 'enemy within,' and others, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud and incarcerated from 1967 until 1971. However, in the eyes of authorities, Hoffa's real crime had been his effectiveness as a labor leader. During the 1966 New York City Transit Workers Union strike, union leader Mike Quill led his 36,000 workers in shutting down the world's largest subway and bus system. Just as Huerta and unions are vilified today, Mayor John Lindsay called the strike 'defiance against eight million people' and, as British labor writer Ronan Burtenshaw explains, 'the New York Times called for the police and army to run the buses; William F. Buckley Jr wanted the National Guard.' A judge issued an injunction to stop the strike, but Quill tore it up in front of the media, saying, 'The judge can drop dead in his black robes. We will not call off the strike!' Quill and other leaders were arrested and jailed, but the TWU lines held, and they won the strike. The Trump Administration's assault on immigrant workers might be the catalyst for a revitalized labor movement with the kind of power unions like the TWU and the Teamsters once wielded. If so, all workers — immigrant or native born, male or female, white, Black, Latino, or other — will be the winners. Glenn Sacks teaches Social Studies and represents United Teachers Los Angeles at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Politico
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
The Resistance 2.0 arrives with nationwide ‘No Kings' protests
As President Donald Trump's military parade rolls through the nation's capital on Saturday, millions of Americans across the country are taking part in the largest coordinated protests against the president since the start of his second administration. But while Trump's parade aims to show America's military prowess in its new era — remade under the administration's anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies — over 2,000 protests planned for major cities and small towns across the country are expected to outdo the president's parade in scale. The demonstrations, organized by an extensive list of progressive organizations including the ACLU, Indivisible and the Service Employees International Union, are dubbed 'No Kings' protests, aiming to highlight Americans' resistance to the Trump administration. 'No Kings is really about standing up for democracy, standing up for people's rights and liberties in this country and against the gross abuse of power that we've seen consistently from the Trump administration,' ACLU's chief political and advocacy officer Deirdre Schifeling said in an interview earlier this military parade and the nationwide counterprotest come at a time of heightened political tensions across the country. In the last week alone, Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles over the objection of state and local officials amid protests — and some unrest — over the president's extensive deportation agenda; Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was manhandled and briefly handcuffed at a press conference for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; and two Minnesota state lawmakers were shot, and one killed, early Saturday in what Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz described it as a politically motivated assination. Over 100 of the protests were planned by volunteers in the past week alone, organizers said, popping up in response to the Trump administration's crackdown on anti-immigration detention protesters in California. 'The Trump administration's goal was to scare people, to make them afraid to stand up for their rights and afraid to protest and stand up for their immigrant neighbors. And it's backfired spectacularly,' Schifeling said. But Saturday's early morning shooting in Minnesota is already weighing on the events. A spokesperson to one prominent battleground Democratic Senate candidate with plans to participate in the demonstrations, granted anonymity to discuss security procedures, said that they are taking extra precautions after the attack in Minnesota. Walz recommended that people not attend events in the state in the aftermath of the killings. 'Out of an abundance of caution my Department of Public Safety is recommending that people do not attend any political rallies today in Minnesota until the suspect is apprehended,' he wrote on social media. But organizers elsewhere said the events will go on. Diane Morgan, a Cleveland-based mobilization coordinator with Our Revolution, said that in the wake of the shooting she's hearing from people on the ground who are saying that 'more than anything else, it makes people more determined, much like what happened with L.A.,' to attend a protest Saturday. Democratic governors in several states — including North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs — released statements on the eve of the planned demonstrations, emphasizing the right to peacefully protest but urging Americans taking to the streets to remain peaceful. 'The right to peacefully protest is sacred and enshrined in our First Amendment, and I will always work to protect that right,' Stein said. 'I urge everyone who wishes to be heard to do so peacefully and lawfully.' While No Kings demonstrations are planned across the nation in what organizers expect to be 'the largest single day of protest in recent American history,' no protests are slated to take place in Washington itself. 'Rather than give him the excuse to crack down on peaceful counterprotests in downtown D.C., or give him the narrative device to claim that we're protesting the military, we said, okay, you can have downtown D.C.,' Ezra Levin, the co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, said. 'Instead, we should organize it everywhere else.' The military parade — which is set to mark the army's 250th anniversary, but also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday — will include over 6,000 marching soldiers, battle tanks and other military vehicles, as well as military aircraft accompanying the procession overhead. Army estimates place the cost of the festivities somewhere between $25 and $45 million, an expense that 60 percent of Americans say is not a good use of funds. But Saturday's festivities may yet face obstacles, with thunderstorms predicted to hit the city in the evening. But Trump is unfazed. 'OUR GREAT MILITARY PARADE IS ON, RAIN OR SHINE. REMEMBER, A RAINY DAY PARADE BRINGS GOOD LUCK. I'LL SEE YOU ALL IN D.C.,' the president wrote in a post on Truth Social Saturday morning. Trump has maintained, in the face of the No Kings protests, that he does not view himself as a monarch. 'No, no. We're not a king,' Trump said at the White House on Thursday. 'We're not a king at all, thank you very much.' Schifeling said she finds Trump's objections 'laughable.' 'This is a person who violates the law at every turn, and is doing everything in his power to intimidate and crush — using the vast power of the presidency and also power that he doesn't even have — to crush anybody that he perceives as disagreeing with him or as his enemies. Those are the actions of a king,' she said. Adam Wren contributed to this report.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘No Kings' protests on Saturday in 8 SD cities
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Eight cities in South Dakota and hundreds of others across the United States on Saturday will mark Flag Day with protests. The 'No Kings Day Nationwide Day of Defiance' events are coordinated by the group Indivisible. 'We are here to flip the narrative,' organizer Dani Negrete said in a nationwide teleconference hosted by Indivisible on Thursday. 'We want to reach out and activate the unactivated.' What to know about SF protests set for this weekend Other speakers included Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Rocio Saenz, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. The protests come on the same day as the U.S. military parade in Washington, D.C., that coincides with the 79th birthday of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump. According to the No Kings website, anti-Trump protests are planned in these South Dakota cities on Saturday: Chamberlain, 10 a.m. CT, 100 King St. / Main St. Yankton, 10:30 a.m. CT, 2000 Douglas Ave. Sioux Falls, 11 a.m. CT, 300 N. Minnesota Ave. Watertown, 11 a.m. CT, 211 E. Kemp Ave. Spearfish, 11 a.m. MT, N. Main St. / W. Jackson St. Pierre, 12:30 p.m. CT, 500 E. Capitol Ave. Brookings, 1 p.m. CT, Sixth St. / 17th Ave. Rapid City, noon MT, 300 Sixth St. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
