One year ago, as families gathered for Fourth of July cookouts and fireworks, Donald Trump signed the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill.” On a day meant to celebrate our liberty, this law deprived working people of their freedom by reaching into their already stretched wallets to pay for billionaire tax cuts.
The damage is real. The cost of necessities like gas and groceries is squeezing working families dry. And now, the cost of health care and utilities is going up too. Meanwhile, the public services Americans depend on when in crisis are being cut.
More than 3.5 million people have lost food assistance, including 770,000 children. One million fewer people have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and more than 446 hospitals are at risk of closing.
This is only the beginning. Some of the law’s cuts hit immediately, while extreme changes and cuts to Medicaid, for example, won’t happen until after November this year. But working families are already feeling its impact.
You feel it when you ask yourself whether the energy bill gets paid or the rent does — because you can't always do both. You feel it when you watch your health insurance premiums climb while your neighborhood clinic cuts its hours.
For AFSCME members, you feel it at work too — when you talk to families and have to break it to them that new policies mean they will lose food assistance, Medicaid and other life-sustaining support. You feel it when low pay drives high turnover, so you’re forced to work mandatory overtime. And you feel it when states, cities and towns say they don’t have the resources to compensate you fairly for your work or invest in our schools, hospitals and roads.
When asked recently whether Americans' financial situation impacts his decision-making, President Trump’s answer was unambiguous: "I don't think about Americans' financial situations, I don't think about anybody."
That is his governing philosophy. It should also be a nationwide call to action for working families to get organized and demand more.
The labor movement is how working people have always asserted that we are not spectators in our own lives. That we have a voice, a vote, and the power to drive change.
Despite the challenges we face, AFSCME members continue to win a voice on the job and strong contracts that improve their lives and their communities. At the state and local levels, we are mobilizing to protect public services. Now, it’s our time to show those who seek to exploit us that we will never give in, and come November, we will hold the anti-worker politicians behind the so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” accountable.
When we stand together, we decide what our collective future looks like.
If you have felt the weight of this past year — in your paycheck, in your community, in the work you do every day — we want to hear from you. Your story is our power. Share it here.