Residents across Ohio, particularly women and people of color, face significant challenges in wealth and wellness. However, understanding how last year’s substantial cuts to the social safety net are affecting these groups in Ohio is increasingly difficult, according to people who study the issue.
This lack of clear data stems from decisions by the Census Bureau, under President Donald Trump, to indefinitely delay or cease the release of important information. Among these is the American Community Survey (ACS), which gathers detailed data on economics, housing, and demographics. The Census Bureau had published this survey annually since its full inception in 2005 but has delayed its release this year.
Separately, the Trump Agriculture Department in 2025 announced it was ending a crucial measure of food insecurity, the annual Household Food Security Reports. This came less than three months after Congress cut $187 billion from federal nutrition assistance. The USDA’s press release stated the study "failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder," and claimed food insecurity trends remained largely unchanged despite increased spending. Amy K. Matsui, vice president for child care and income security at the National Women's Law Center, criticized this, noting the statement did not mention the global pandemic or job losses between 2019 and 2023. Matsui added that the administration is stopping this "very consistent, reliable and trusted report" at a time of deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), skyrocketing food prices, and strained food banks.
The data delays come after Congressional Republicans passed, and President Trump signed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This legislation provided $1 trillion in tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans over a decade, while cutting nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and $187 billion from SNAP over the same period. As a direct result of these cuts, 5 million Americans lost their food assistance by June 2026, including an estimated 100,000 Ohioans.
Additionally, after extending tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, Congressional Republicans allowed pandemic-era subsidies designed to help purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to expire. By February 2026, 2.6 million Americans, roughly 10% of those enrolled, had dropped their coverage. Ohio experienced the most significant losses of any state, with 32.4%, or 161,000 people, losing their health insurance coverage.
Given these deep reductions to the safety net, tracking the impact on vulnerable Americans at state and community levels would be expected. However, Matsui stated that this is not occurring. "We don’t (have state and local information) with regard to poverty data and that’s because the Trump administration is holding on to a specific dataset," Matsui said in an interview on Monday. This dataset typically provides "quality state-level and demographic data about poverty and income," but it has been put on indefinite hold.
The Census Bureau attributed the delay in the American Community Survey release to its need to assess a new departmental administrative order prohibiting "noise infusion," a technique used to protect confidentiality. An August 17 post by the bureau stated the change was due to "concerns that adding noise made the statistics less accurate and less trustworthy." However, the academic journal *Science* reported in July that scientists expressed concerns that this change was an attempt to politicize the census and science itself. The journal quoted a University of Texas computer scientist who said the administration banned "essentially all modern techniques for preserving privacy in large datasets." Matsui believes this change serves to obscure the consequences of safety net cuts, stating, "They’re really trying to hide from view what people are experiencing."
The Census Project, a coalition of former Census Bureau directors, business associations, and 800 other organizations, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on September 4, expressing concern that the government was abandoning a long-used security technique and delaying vital information. The group emphasized that American Community Survey data are "especially critical to their planning, investment decisions, market strategies, and public services."
Without this updated information, understanding the full impact on Ohio residents, particularly those who rely on these programs, remains challenging. Other census data already highlight significant disparities, with more than 20% of Black and Hispanic women living in poverty in 2025, compared to 8.7% of white men, according to the Women’s Law Center. Additionally, nearly a third, 29.3%, of families headed by single women lived in poverty.
