Children in Arizona are going hungry because of Trump’s food stamp cuts

Under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” food stamp applicants are fighting to prove eligibility. A crisis in Arizona offers a warning for America.

This article is part of “Unaffordable America,” a series examining rising economic inequality in the U.S. and the policies that drive it.

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PHOENIX — The line outside a suburban office building was already 15 people long when Tiffany Hudson showed up with her 7-year-old son cradling his blanket. It was 7 a.m. At the front of the line was a woman hooked up to an oxygen tank who had arrived 90 minutes before the building opened.

Like others there, Husdon had come to the Arizona Department of Economic Security office in Surprise, a Phoenix suburb, to find out why the food stamp benefits for her and her two children were cut off after the state began implementing new eligibility requirements under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”