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December 2, 2025
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…
December 2, 2025
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…
November 20, 2025
When help holds families back
One of the central contradictions in American politics today is that, despite decades of measurable progress for low-income families – marked by declining poverty rates, rising household incomes, and greater…
October 29, 2025
Who Is at Risk of Losing Snap Benefits Due to the Shutdown?
Unless the Senate passes legislation that reopens the federal government within the next few days (or the courts intervene), 22 million households containing 42 million individuals (approximately 12 percent of the US population) will…
September 23, 2025
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”….
September 23, 2025
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…
September 23, 2025
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…
September 9, 2025
SNAP Prioritizes Nutrition in New Administration
As of last month, twelve states had received federal waivers allowing them to restrict the purchase of certain foods under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) based on limited nutritional…
September 3, 2025
The Shifting Composition Of SNAP Households
An underappreciated trend in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—formerly the Food Stamp Program—over the past two decades is the shift in participation toward childless households, particularly single-person households without…
August 8, 2025
A win for Wisconsin families: Childcare in the 2025-2027 biennial state budget
Wisconsin’s 2025-2027 biennial budget includes several provisions aimed at improving the affordability of childcare in the Badger state, ending the misguided effort to directly support private childcare providers’ operating expenses…