As Trump Nominees Back SNAP and Medicaid Work Requirements, Report Shows Harms

After nominees for U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet this week endorsed work requirements for social safety net programs, an economic think tank released a Friday report detailing the policy's drawbacks.

"Work requirements for safety net programs are a punitive solution that solves no real problem," said Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist and report author Hilary Wething in a statement about her new publication.

"They do not reliably increase employment, but they do kick people off essential benefits like food assistance and healthcare," she stressed. "If policymakers are genuinely concerned about improving access to work, they should support policies like affordable child- and eldercare."

"The existing safety net is too stingy and tilts too hard toward making benefits difficult to access."

EPI's report explains that recently, congressional Republicans—who now have a majority in both chambers—"have embraced proposals to ratchet up work requirements as conditions for the receipt of some federal government benefits. These proposals are clearly trying to exploit a vague, but pervasive, sense that some recipients of public support are gaming the system to get benefits that they do not need, as they could be earning money in the labor market to support themselves instead."

"However, a careful assessment of the current state of public benefit programs demonstrates that almost none of the alleged benefits of ratcheting up work requirements are economically significant, but that the potential costs of doing this could be large and fall on the most economically vulnerable," the document states. "The most targeted programs for more stringent work requirements are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, popularly referred to as food stamps) and Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people."

"EPI has surveyed the research literature on work requirements and how they interact with these two programs in particular, and we find that the existing safety net is too stingy and tilts too hard toward making benefits difficult to access," the report continues. "Tightening eligibility by increasing work requirements for these programs will make this problem even worse with no tangible benefit in the form of higher levels of employment among low-income adults."

Wething found that work requirements generally target nonelderly adults without documented disabilities who don't have official dependents living in their homes, formally called "able-bodied adults without dependents" (ABAWDs).

"While ABAWDs might not have documented disabilities that result in benefit receipt or have dependent children living at home full-time, they often experience health challenges and must take on some caregiving duties, each of which could provide a genuine barrier to finding steady work," the report says. "We find that 21% reported having a disability that affects their ability to find and sustain work, suggesting that adults with genuine health barriers are being swept up in overly stringent work requirements."

Additionally, "13.8% of ABAWDs live with an adult over the age of 65 in their household, suggesting that many are potential caregivers in some form and likely have caregiving responsibilities beyond what is captured on paper," the document notes. "Despite ABAWDs having health challenges and caregiving responsibilities that make participation in the labor market difficult, our current social safety net does very little to support these adults."

The publication highlights that "low-income adults generally face steep labor market challenges, making it difficult to meet work requirements," including that "low-wage work is precarious, making work time hard to maintain."

The report also emphasizes that "by making the process of applying for crucial safety net programs more burdensome, work requirements effectively function like a cut to programs," and "the consequences of losing access to SNAP and Medicaid for low-income adults are severe, often resulting in food and health insecurity."

Despite the abundance of research about the downsides of work requirements, Brooke Rollins, Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture—which administers SNAP—expressed support for the policy during a Thursday Senate confirmation hearing, echoing what Russell Vought, the president's pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget, said about Medicaid on Wednesday.

Rather than pushing work requirements, the EPI report argues, decision-makers could advocate for "policies that would measurably improve employment in low-income households," including "macroeconomic policy to maintain full employment."

The publication also promotes policies that increase scheduling predictability, provide better help with caregiving responsibilities, assist formerly incarcerated people with finding and maintaining jobs, reduce unnecessary education mandates for employment, and improve transportation options. It further calls for reducing existing work requirements.

"It is entirely possible that reducing eligibility barriers to safety net programs—barriers like work requirements—may well be more effective in promoting work than raising those barriers would be," the report states. "A majority of adults who gained coverage through Medicaid expansion in Ohio and Michigan found that having healthcare made it easier to find and maintain work."