Menstrual Equity For All Act of 2025
Key claim: The Menstrual Equity For All Act of 2025 would expand free access to menstrual products through Medicaid, TANF grants, schools, large employers, correctional and DHS detention facilities, and federal public restrooms, while prohibiting state and local sales taxes on these products.
Abstract
(HR3644 · 119th Congress) Menstrual Equity For All Act of 2025 This bill expands access to menstrual products (e.g., tampons) in certain locations and for particular groups, such as in schools and for low-income individuals, through federal programs and requirements. It also prohibits state or local sales taxes for these products. The bill expands access to menstrual products through federal programs by requiring Medicaid to cover such products, establishing grants within the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to provide benefits to ensure access to such products, authorizing the Emergency Food and Shelter Program to provide menstrual products to homeless individuals, and increasing Social Services Block Grant funding to provide such products to low-income individuals. Also, the bill sets out requirements to make free menstrual products available in federal and state correctional facilities (including Department of Homeland Security detention facilities) and restrooms in federal buildings that are open to the public. Further, the bill (1) establishes grants to provide free menstrual products to students at institutions of higher education, and (2) permits elementary and secondary schools to use certain grant funds to provide menstrual products to students. In addition, the bill requires employers with at least 100 employees to provide free menstrual products for employees. Finally, the bill prohibits states and local governments from taxing retail sales of menstrual products. Latest action (2025-05-29): Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, Financial Services, Energy and Commerce, Transportation and Infrastructure, Ways and Means, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Why this matters
The bill packages menstrual product access as a civil rights and equity issue across several dependent populations — low-income Medicaid enrollees, students, incarcerated people, immigration detainees, and workers — where lack of access has documented effects on school attendance, workplace participation, and detention conditions. Its sales-tax preemption also raises a federalism question about Congress overriding state tax authority to advance an anti-discrimination rationale, a contested framing that opponents view as federal overreach and supporters view as ending a gender-based tax disparity.