FACTS ONPROP 40.

Facts on Prop 40 / The research

H.R. 1 Fallout

How the federal budget law cuts health care and food assistance, causing ripple effects that devastate public safety, energy costs, mental health, housing, and consumer affordability, all to fund a historic immigration enforcement surge — and what it means for California

4 pages

The Bottom Line

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) into law. It is one of the largest transfers of public money in modern history — away from health care and food assistance, and toward immigration detention and deportation.1

  • Food assistance: At least $187 billion cut from SNAP through 2034— approximately 20% of the program.2 Over 40 million people nationwide are expected to be affected; in California, 840,000 people become newly subject to work rules, about 660,000 are projected to fail them, and 72,000 legally present immigrants lose CalFresh outright.3

  • Immigration enforcement: $170 billion added for ICE, border detention, and deportation — making ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country.4,5

  • Energy costs: Rolling back clean-energy incentives is projected to raise the typical household's energy bill by $170 a year and cost California more than 110,000 jobs and $130 billion in GDP by 2034 and 2035, respectively.6,7

  • Mental health: California community health centers, the backbone of behavioral health access in many counties, are projected to lose 850,000 to 1.7 million patients, pushing people from preventive care into crisis care.8

Most of the pain lands in 2027 and 2028 — conveniently after the 2026 midterms.9 The Congressional Budget Office projects the law add $3.4 trillion to the deficit.10

Hunger by Design

CalFresh, California's food-stamp program, feeds 5.4 million low-income Californians. 11 Nationally, SNAP is the country's most effective anti-hunger tool, helping more than 42 million people afford food every month. H.R. 1 cuts SNAP by at least $187 billion through 2034 — the deepest cut in the program's history.12

  • National Scale: Cuts will affect over 40 million people who use SNAP each month including 16 million children, 8 million seniors, and 4 million non-elderly disabled adults.13

  • CalFresh/SNAP expanded requirements: Work requirements expand from ages 18–54 to 18–64, and exemptions for veterans, homeless individuals, and former foster youth are eliminated. In California, 840,000 people become newly subject to the rule, and about 660,000 are projected to fail it. An estimated 72,000 non-citizens are expected to lose CalFresh benefits due to narrowed eligibility. 14

  • CalFresh cost-shift: the federal government currently splits administrative costs evenly with states and counties. Starting October 2026, the federal share drops from 50% to 25%, pushing the nonfederal share up to 75%. That's roughly $480 million in new annual costs for the state and $190 million for counties. CalFresh benefits themselves have always been 100% federally funded, but starting October 2027, states with a payment error rate of 6% or higher will have to start covering a share of benefit costs themselves, scaled to how high their error rate is. California's most recent measured error rate (2023-24) was nearly 11%, which, if it doesn't improve, would put the state at the maximum penalty tier, an estimated $2 billion in new annual general fund costs.15

  • Immigrant eligibility: An estimated 72,000 CalFresh enrollees in California — asylees, refugees, trafficking survivors, and other legally present immigrants — lose eligibility entirely under narrower immigration-status rules.16

Because SNAP normally acts as an automatic economic stabilizer during downturns, these cuts significantly weaken the country's ability to respond to the next recession. And because food insecurity is linked to higher pediatric ER visits, worse asthma outcomes, and developmental delays, the health consequences will land hardest on children.

These cuts also cut against the bill's own stated public-safety rationale: SNAP access is linked to lower rearrest rates and less intimate partner violence among people leaving incarceration.17 Taking food assistance away from the same population the bill claims to be protecting is a downstream consequence, not a side effect.

ICE Funding Surge

Supporters call H.R. 1 on a public safety bill. The evidence points out the other way: the $170 billion in new immigration enforcement funding must be spent by September 30, 2029, and nearly three-quarters of it goes to the border wall, detention expansion, and hiring ICE agents.18

  • Enforcement Scale: In 2026, DHS grew its officer and agent ranks by 120% — more than 12,000 additional agents.19 That growth enabled large scale "surges" of agents into American cities. In Minnesota alone, roughly 3,000 ICE and CBP agents were deployed — five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department.20

  • Documented harms: Raids have been documented near schools, hospitals, and churches. There have been documented cases of racial profiling and wrongful detention of U.S. citizens, and overuse of chemical agents in residential neighborhoods. The escalation has already turned fatal, including in the cases of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti who were killed by ICE agents in Minnesota, with other residents wounded.21

  • Chilling effect: An estimated 3.3 million Californians live in mixed status households, and even the threat of enforcement is enough to make families avoid police, schools, and hospitals — forgoing benefits they legally qualify for and pulling children out of school out of fear.22

Higher Energy Bills, Dirtier Air

H.R. 1 rolls back the clean energy incentives passed under the Inflation Reduction Act.

  • Nationally: Independent modeling projects this will cut 340 gigawatts of new electricity capacity by 2035, push wholesale electricity prices up 74% by 2035, and raise the typical household's annual energy bill by $170.25 Nationally, researchers link the resulting increase in fossil fuel reliance to hundreds of additional deaths a year from air pollution by 2030, rising further by 2035.23

  • In California: modeling based on the House-passed version of the bill projects the loss of over 110,000 jobs and $130 billion in cumulative GDP by 2034, plus higher household energy costs and dozens of additional premature deaths a year by 2035 from air pollution.24

Mental Health: The Quiet Casualty

Community mental health care depends heavily on stable public funding. Shrinking that funding doesn't make demand disappear — it pushes people into crisis instead of prevention. The paperwork and eligibility burdens created elsewhere in H.R. 1 fall hardest on people managing serious mental illness, active substance use disorder, or housing instability — exactly the people least equipped to navigate red tape, and exactly the people these systems exist to serve.

  1. Community health centers, a backbone of behavioral health access in many counties, are projected to lose between 850,000 and 1.7 million California patients — a direct hit to the revenue that keeps their doors open.25

Two groups are especially exposed. Executive Order 14187 restricted gender-affirming care for people under 19; multiple hospitals paused related programs in response, and courts have only partially blocked enforcement, prompting warnings from suicide-prevention organizations about increased self-harm risk among affected youth.26 And because schools rely on federal health funding for roughly $5 billion a year in school-based health services, funding cuts reach children's mental health both directly and through defunded school programs.27

  1. California Budget & Policy Center, "HR1 and the Federal Budget: How California Leaders Can Respond to Trump's Cuts." https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/hr1-and-the-federal-budget-how-california-leaders-can-respond-to-trumps-cuts/↩︎

  2. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/by-the-numbers-harmful-republican-megabill-takes-food-assistance-away-from↩︎

  3. https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/health/2026/H.-R-1-Key-Impacts-021126.pdf↩︎

  4. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/big-beautiful-bill-immigration-border-security/↩︎

  5. https://mnbudgetproject.org/blog/more-guns-less-butter-how-massive-federal-funding-increases-for-ice-are-costing-us-all↩︎

  6. Energy Innovation, California-specific impact analysis. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Impacts-Of-The-One-Big-Beautiful-Bill-On-California-Energy-Costs-Jobs-Health-And-Emissions.pdf↩︎

  7. https://energyinnovation.org/report/updated-economic-impacts-of-u-s-senate-passed-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-energy-provisions/↩︎

  8. County of Marin, "September 9 Full Informational Report — Update to Board on H.R. 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act)." https://www.marincounty.gov/departments/executive/budget-and-priority-setting/legislative-support-and-advocacy/legislative-letters/september-9-full-informational-report-update-board-hr-1-one-big-beautiful-bill-act↩︎

  9. NPR, "Republican candidates say they are healthcare champions despite cuts" (July 31, 2026). https://www.npr.org/2026/07/31/nx-s1-5870960/republican-ads-healthcare-medicaid-2026-midterms↩︎

  10. Congressional Budget Office estimate of the budgetary effects of H.R. 1 as enacted (July 21, 2025), summarized in American Hospital Association, "CBO projects OBBBA to increase uninsured by 10 million, federal deficit by $3.4 trillion." https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2025-07-21-cbo-projects-obbba-increase-uninsured-10-million-federal-deficit-34-trillion↩︎

  11. https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/health/2026/H.-R-1-Key-Impacts-021126.pdf↩︎

  12. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Expanded Work Requirements in House Republican Bill Would Take Away Food Assistance From Millions" (May 13, 2025). https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/expanded-work-requirements-in-house-republican-bill-would-take-away-food↩︎

  13. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/by-the-numbers-harmful-republican-megabill-takes-food-assistance-away-from↩︎

  14. California Legislative Analyst's Office, "Key Impacts of H.R. 1 on Medi-Cal and CalFresh" (February 11, 2026). https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/health/2026/H.-R-1-Key-Impacts-021126.pdf↩︎

  15. Key Impacts of H.R. 1 on Medi-Cal and CalFresh↩︎

  16. California Legislative Analyst's Office, supra.↩︎

  17. Vera Institute of Justice, "3 Ways Trump's Big Beautiful Bill Will Undermine Public Safety." https://www.vera.org/news/5-ways-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-will-undermine-public-safety↩︎

  18. American Immigration Council, "What's in the Big Beautiful Bill? Immigration & Border Security Unpacked." https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/big-beautiful-bill-immigration-border-security/↩︎

  19. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/03/ice-announces-historic-120-manpower-increase-thanks-recruitment-campaign-brought↩︎

  20. Department of Homeland Security, press release (January 3, 2026); Minnesota Budget Project, "More guns, less butter: How massive federal funding increases for ICE are costing us all." https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/03/ice-announces-historic-120-manpower-increase-thanks-recruitment-campaign-brought ; https://mnbudgetproject.org/blog/more-guns-less-butter-how-massive-federal-funding-increases-for-ice-are-costing-us-all↩︎

  21. ABC News, "What we know about Alex Pretti, VA nurse killed by federal agent in Minneapolis." https://abcnews.com/US/alex-pretti-icu-nurse-killed-federal-agent-minneapolis/story?id=129525591↩︎

  22. California Budget & Policy Center, "Deportations and Immigration Limits Threaten California Families, Economy." https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/deportations-and-immigration-limits-threaten-california-families-economy/↩︎

  23. Center for American Progress, "What Trump's Anti-Environment One Big Beautiful Bill Act Means for Your Wallet, Health, and Safety." https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-trumps-anti-environment-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-means-for-your-wallet-health-and-safety/↩︎

  24. Energy Innovation, California-specific impact analysis. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Impacts-Of-The-One-Big-Beautiful-Bill-On-California-Energy-Costs-Jobs-Health-And-Emissions.pdf↩︎

  25. County of Marin, "September 9 Full Informational Report — Update to Board on H.R. 1." https://www.marincounty.gov/departments/executive/budget-and-priority-setting/legislative-support-and-advocacy/legislative-letters/september-9-full-informational-report-update-board-hr-1-one-big-beautiful-bill-act↩︎

  26. HR1_Fallout.xlsx, Column E, row 25, citing Executive Order 14187 (January 28, 2025), the CMS notice of proposed rulemaking of December 18, 2025, and KFF, "Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions Impacting LGBTQ+ Health."↩︎

  27. HR1_Fallout.xlsx, Column E, row 7, citing CMS final rule on uniformity waivers for Medicaid provider taxes and Department of Education staff reduction announcements (2025).↩︎