Government & Policy
Legislation, executive orders, regulatory changes, and government actions that directly impact personal finances, taxes, benefits, or the economy.
Latest in Government & Policy
Nearly 6,000 food-stamp retailers have been disqualified or suspended, and 2,000 illegal point-of-sale devices blocked
Operation SNAP Back, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s retailer-enforcement campaign, has produced nearly 6,000 food-stamp retailer disqualifications or suspensions and the removal of more than...
A rule that took effect September 18 lets food stamps and Medicaid count against a green-card application
The Department of Homeland Security began weighing an immigrant’s use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and most means-tested Medicaid coverage against a green-card application...
A missed Medicaid work-rule check brings a notice and 30 days to prove the hours or lose coverage
A federal Medicaid rule now gives states exactly one option when they cannot confirm an enrollee logged the required work hours: send a written notice...
Veterans with a total disability rating are exempt from Medicaid’s new work rule, along with tribal members
A new exemption list spells out who is spared from Medicaid’s first nationwide work requirement, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services names nine...
The Ways and Means Committee advanced a Medicare pilot for medically tailored home-delivered meals, 39 to nothing
Medicare would pay for the home-delivered meals pilot by taking the cost out of other hospitals’ payments rather than adding new money to the program,...
A House committee advanced a Medicare Alzheimer’s screening bill 40 to nothing on September 16
The House Ways and Means Committee voted 40 to 0 on September 16 to advance H.R. 6130, the Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention Act, sending the...
Most-favored-nation drug pricing now reaches Medicaid in all 50 states, with ten-year savings projected at $64.3 billion
The White House announced on September 18 that most-favored-nation drug pricing now extends to every state’s Medicaid program, bringing to government-funded coverage the same rebate...
Medicaid switches expansion adults to renewals every six months, starting with dates set on or after January 1
Beginning with renewals scheduled on or after January 1, 2027, the fifty states and the District of Columbia must redetermine Medicaid eligibility for most adults...
A four-person food-stamp household can net $2,750 a month from October 1 and still qualify
A four-person household can earn up to $2,750 a month in net income and still qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program once the new...
Medicaid’s new work rule counts half-time school, and caring for a child 13 or under, as meeting the hours
A new federal rule taking effect for Medicaid enrollees in 43 states and the District of Columbia by January 1, 2027, treats two very different...
Social Security’s October 14 announcement also sets the 2027 raise for every veteran drawing disability pay
Social Security is on track to certify the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment on October 14, and under a standing legal requirement, that percentage will simultaneously reset...
A new order gives veterans’ records offices a deadline after transfers averaged up to 180 days
President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14426 on September 8, 2026, directing the Department of War and the Department of Veterans Affairs to share military...
Medicaid has received one million free Eliquis prescriptions under the new drug pricing deal
The White House said this month that Medicaid programs in all 50 states have already received one million free prescriptions of Eliquis, the blood thinner...
The produce benefit for WIC has no published amount for the year starting October 1
USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service has not published a fiscal year 2027 policy memorandum setting the WIC cash-value benefit — the monthly allowance every participant...
Food stamp waivers are now granted only where unemployment reaches 10 percent
USDA has begun canceling food stamp work-requirement waivers that states relied on for years, not because those waivers expired on their own terms but because...
Heating aid counts toward food stamps only if a household pays more than $20 and includes a senior
A single test used to decide whether a household’s home heating or cooling costs were automatically recognized in its food stamp benefit: any payment, of...
The federal government cuts its share of food stamp administration in half on October 1
Beginning October 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will cover only 25 cents of every dollar states spend running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s administrative...
Internet service can no longer be counted as a shelter cost when food stamps are calculated
A provision that took effect the day President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act strips a single recurring bill out of the arithmetic...
New food stamp exemptions now cover American Indian, Urban Indian and California Indian households
Three subsections of a 1976 tribal health law now determine whether an Indian, Urban Indian, or California Indian food stamp recipient can be required to...
Food stamp rules now put people up to age 64 on a time limit, and states must tell them
Ten years used to separate the oldest person subject to a food stamp work deadline from someone who could safely ignore it. Under a policy...