Author: Saumya Roy
Published on: 10/05/2026 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Greer Dove has been on the federal government’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) for six years. Before she got food benefits, Dove fed her daughter all she had and skipped meals or looked around for snacks in the offices she worked at to get her through the day. Dove, a single mother, makes sure to drop in at the food bank to pick up vegetables, fruit and other food. California’s proposed billionaire tax seeks to impose a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of the state’s more than 200 billionaires to make up for the funding gap created by the OBBBA. It is likely to be on the ballot for the November midterm election. Most of the nearly $100bn expected to be raised through the tax. Food benefit rolls have shrunk by more than 3.3 million nationally in the six months from July 2025 to January 2026. In California, the rolls of Calfresh shrank by 288,000 or 6 percent. This reduction happened even before the OBBBA was enacted. Unemployment remained stable at about 4.4 percent since July 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, SNAP rolls shrank by 8 percent, while in California, they shrank 5.5 percent, in part because the work eligibility requirements were delayed until June. California is the world’s fourth-largest economy, but growth has come with a soaring cost-of-living crisis. The OBBA has also shifted the administrative cost of meeting work eligibility requirements to states. This has already led to a 51 percent drop in SNAP rolls in Arizona. The coalition of unions backing the billionaire tax is bracing for the fight ahead. One of these measures prohibits future taxes on personal property, including financial assets, savings and retirement accounts, as well as intellectual property. The other would increase audits of taxpayer-funded programmes. California tax remedies this by taxing only billionaires and taxing assets, including shares in companies. Governor Gavin Newsom is in the last year of his last term as governor. But nearly all the candidates running for the June 2 primary also oppose this measure.
Original: 1821 words
Summary: 343 words
Percent reduction: 81.16%