Women — especially women of color — continue to lag average Americans in measures of wealth and wellness. But when it comes to tracking how Ohio women are doing in the aftermath of last year’s deep cuts to the social safety net, people who study the issue say they’re flying blind.

That’s because the Census Bureau under President Donald Trump has indefinitely delayed or stopped releasing important data. 

The American Community Survey collects detailed information on economics, housing and demographics. Until this year, the Census Bureau published it annually since its full inception in 2005. It’s delayed publication this year, saying it’s ending an obscure procedure meant to protect confidentiality.

And the Trump Agriculture Department in 2025 announced it was ending a key measure of food insecurity.

Last year, congressional Republicans passed — and President Trump signed — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. While it gave $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans over 10 years, it cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and $187 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the same period. 

Because of the cuts, 5 million Americans lost their food assistance by June 2026. That includes 100,000 Ohioans.

And after Congressional Republicans extended tax cuts weighted toward the rich, they allowed pandemic-era subsidies to help purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act to expire. 

By February 2026, 2.6 million Americans, or about 10% of those enrolled, dropped their coverage. Ohio saw the biggest losses of any state — 32.4%, or 161,000 people.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.

Given those deep cuts to the safety net, it would make sense for the government to track what happens to the most vulnerable Americans — and to track it right down to the state and community level. But that’s not what it’s doing, said Amy K. Matsui, vice president for child care and income security at the National Women’s Law Center. 

“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,” she said in an interview Monday. “That’s where we get our quality state-level and demographic data about poverty and income, but the Trump administration has put it on indefinite hold.”

Other census data show severe disparities between minority women and white men. 

For example, more than 20% of Black and Hispanic women lived in poverty in 2025 compared to 8.7% of white men. And nearly a third — 29.3% — of families headed by single women lived in poverty, according to the Women’s Law Center.

The American Community Survey provided state and community-level estimates about things like employment, poverty, housing and insurance by demographic group.

It’s “an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about our nation and its people,”the Census Bureau website says. “Information from the survey generates data that help inform how trillions of dollars in federal funds are distributed each year.” 

The bureau typically publishes the survey for the previous year in September. But publication is being delayed indefinitely this year.

Asked why, the bureau gave a technical explanation.

“The release date for the 2025 ACS 1-year estimates is being determined,” the bureau’s public information office said in an email. “The Census Bureau is assessing the impact of the new departmental administrative order (DAO), Department of Commerce Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products, and seeking DAO-compliant solutions to allow the release of the ACS 1-year tables later this year.”

The order prohibits the use of a technique called “noise infusion” to avoid disclosure of protected information.

The rule the Census Bureau referenced didn’t give a reason for the change other than to say it had to balance privacy with accuracy and, “Any use of noise infusion is inconsistent with the Department’s policies.”

In an Aug. 17 post, the Census Bureau said the change was due to “concerns that adding noise made the statistics less accurate and less trustworthy.”

But the academic journal Science in July reported concerns among scientists that it was an attempt by Trump to politicize the census and science itself. The administration banned “essentially all modern techniques for preserving privacy in large datasets,” the journal quoted a University of Texas computer scientist as saying.

“The change marks the first time political appointees have dictated the (Census Bureau’s) statistical methods, census watchers say,” the story said. “It will affect the 2030 census, which is used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives by state every decade and determine the distribution of trillions of dollars annually in federal funds.”

While that story focused on the change’s impact on the 2030 Census, Matsui of the Women’s Law Center said she believed it serves another purpose — to obscure the human consequences of slashing the safety net.

“We really think this is a mechanism to hide from view certain disfavored demographic groups, whether that’s women, people of color, LGBTQ… They’re really trying to hide from view what people are experiencing,” she said.

For its part, the Census Project, a group of former Census Bureau directors, business associations and others, on Sept. 4 wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the bureau. Speaking on behalf of 800 organizations, the group said the government was abandoning a security technique “federal statistical agencies have used for years” and delaying vital information.

“Our members depend on reliable, high-quality census data to analyze changing U.S. economic and demographic trends,” the letter said. American Community Survey “data are especially critical to their planning, investment decisions, market strategies, and public services, for example, on behalf of businesses, state and local governments, consumers, veterans, and children.” 

Matsui said the Trump administration is also blocking other measures of its policies’ fallout.

Last year, less than three months after cutting $187 billion from federal nutrition assistance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it was ending its annual Household Food Security Reports. The highly partisan press release seemed an attempt to justify the deep cuts.

“For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments — failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder,” it said. “Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 — 2023.”

The statement didn’t mention the global pandemic and consequent job loss that took place between 2019 and 2023. Matsui said the Trump administration ignored other facts as it squelched the report.

“Right at the time when there were really deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food prices are skyrocketing, and food banks can’t keep up with demand, (the Trump administration is) trying to prevent this very consistent, reliable and trusted report on families’ food insecurity,” she said. “They’re just stopping it,”

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE