On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the expiration of pandemic era expansions to the social safety net, including increases to food stamps, the child tax credit, Medicaid, universal school lunches, and more.

Those programs have now ended even though 53 million working people in the US make just $24,000 a year, according to Brookings. Over 11 million children in the US live below the federal poverty line. Almost four million more children lived in in poverty in January 2022 without the monthly child tax credit, according to the Center on Poverty & Social Policy at Columbia University.

Average food stamp benefits have fallen to just $6 per day. Older adults have seen their monthly benefits fall from $281 to just $23, according to the Food Research & Action Center.

Over 17 million people could lose Medicaid coverage as states begin the disenrollment process, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What will it take to make these benefits permanent?