All Research
Op-ed
Compiling My Work on Work Incentives
…Angela Rachidi, Matt Weidinger, and me on the importance of work incentives in evaluating safety net policies, as well as a few multi-authored pieces. Beyond these highlights, on the webpage…
Commentary
Assessing Duplicative Federal Benefit Programs and Preventing Abuse
…4, 2024, https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4572496-bidens-tax-cut-rhetoric-is-really-just-code-for-benefit-increases/. [21] For a comprehensive review of benefit cliffs and their implications, see Angela Rachidi et al., Stranded by the Safety Net: How to Fix the Benefit Cliff Problem, American Enterprise…
Op-Ed
AI Changes NOTHING About What Students Need to Learn
…liberal arts, Angela Bauer, the provost at Texas Woman’s University, urges a “seismic shift” in which colleges “transition from a content-based curriculum” and “knowledge-based tests” to “experiential learning theory.” Though she…
Commentary
If You Care about Poverty, Ditch the ACA Expanded Subsidies
My AEI colleague Mark Warshawsky recently wrote an excellent summary of policy reasons not to extend the COVID-era enhanced ACA subsidies. His explainer adds to a substantial body of work…
Commentary
What To Do About Benefit Cliffs?
…will help those capable of working get the help they need, without preventing them from working their way up the income ladder. Angela Rachidi and Matt Weidinger are both Rowe…
Report
Stranded by the Safety Net: How to Fix the Benefit Cliff Problem
Key Points The safety net for low-income families aims to offer temporary and targeted assistance so that, among other things, work-capable individuals and families can achieve their economic goals. Too…
Commentary
Why the USDA Is Justified in Ending the Food Security Survey
The USDA announced plans to discontinue future Household Food Security reports, ending the annual supplemental survey that, among other things, was used as the government’s official statistic on “food insecurity”….
Report
End Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility in SNAP and Address Benefit Cliffs
Abstract Broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an administrative function with broad implications for SNAP caseloads and expenditures. Though Congress originally established BBCE as…
Op-Ed
Trump Halts ‘Food Insecurity’ Report — Because Democrats’ Doublespeak Is Falling Flat
…assistance, which has grown sharply. Food stamps alone served 22 million households in 2023. Tellingly, my AEI colleagues Angela Rachidi and Thomas O’Rourke have reported that over one in five households listed as being…
Commentary
Perspective on the OBBBA’s SNAP Cuts
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will reduce federal spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $186.7 billion over the next 10…
Report
How Large Would SNAP Be? Simulating the Size of SNAP Based on Changes to the Unemployment Rate
…is precisely what we observe over the past several decades—SNAP’s caseload and expenditures generally increase as the unemployment rate increases and generally decrease as the unemployment rate decreases (Rachidi 2021)….
Commentary
Putting the CBO’s Estimates of SNAP’s Work Requirement into Context
Recent proposals to expand the work requirement in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been almost universally portrayed as a punitive effort to push low-income recipients off the program. Indeed, the…