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December 2, 2025

What To Do About Benefit Cliffs?

Everyone wants poor families to work their way off welfare and ascend the income ladder. Yet an increasing number remain trapped on government benefits, struggling to support themselves. Some blame the recipients, politicians, the economy, racism, or even capitalism. But few focus on perhaps the most obvious factor – government programs themselves, which actively discourage…

By Angela Rachidi | Matt Weidinger

December 2, 2025

Stranded by the Safety Net: How to Fix the Benefit Cliff Problem

Key Points Executive Summary The US safety net should help low-income families meet their immediate needs while supporting their long-term upward mobility. Yet certain program rules—especially those that create “benefit cliffs”—often do the opposite by discouraging work and trapping families in poverty. At its core, a benefit cliff occurs when government benefits decrease too abruptly…

By Angela Rachidi | Matt Weidinger | Joshua Bandoch | Nic Dunn | Leslie Ford | Erik Randolph

December 1, 2025

Apocalypse Not

Now we’re getting somewhere! Thanks to the person who posts on X.com using @MTSInsights, I know where Michael Green got his inflated cost estimates, which I critiqued in my last post. (Green, you may recall, claimed that $140,000 is the new poverty line and the “cost of existing.”) His figures come from the Living Wage Calculator (LWC), a project of…

By Scott Winship

November 30, 2025

Our Economy Is Not Stagnant

Both sides of the political aisle are misleadingly bleak about the state of the American worker. A national Pew survey conducted in April of this year found that 56 percent of Americans believe that “life in America today” is worse than it was “50 years ago for people like you.” In a separate April survey, the exact same…

By Scott Winship

November 27, 2025

The Real Math of Survival?

Earlier today (much earlier…) I posted a critique of the new viral post by Michael W. Green claiming that families with less than $140,000 in income should be considered to be in poverty. That critique focused on a truly absurd revision of how we measure poverty that has the effect of making us look dramatically poorer when in fact…

By Scott Winship

November 26, 2025

How Not to Redefine Poverty

I tried to let it go. Someone mentioned the essay to me on Monday, when it was a Substack post. I tweeted out some quick thoughts as to why no one should take it seriously, pointing out the glaring problem that I’ll walk through below. I tried to get back to my other work (a…

By Scott Winship

November 25, 2025

Congress should restore local autonomy over homeless aid

The Trump administration recently announced a major shift to the scoring rubric for the federal government’s main source of homeless aid—the Continuum of Care program—which annually distributes $3.9 billion in competitive funding to local communities. The new rubric will target funds to recovery-oriented, time-limited housing programs, a reversal of a decades-long emphasis on no-strings-attached permanent…

By Kevin Corinth

November 21, 2025

Hungary’s Fertility Outcomes Highlight Pro-Natal Policy Limitations

Increasing fertility is an objective for many countries worldwide, but Hungary’s pro-natal policies have received an outsized amount of attention in recent years. Hungary is unique because its pro-natal policies have been bold and its objectives ambitious. Since 2010, Hungary has implemented a variety of policies, including zero-interest “baby-expecting” loans and debt forgiveness for couples…

By Vanessa Brown Calder

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 levels of consumption – many families continue to feel as though they are falling behind. Child poverty rates have dropped to near historic lows, and…

By Angela Rachidi

November 19, 2025

Real Estate Red Flag: How Hidden Blue-State Policies are Pricing Out Homeowners

A telling new analysis of rising home maintenance costs from the real estate listing service Zillow, in conjunction with Thumbtack, which tracks the cost of local services, should remind those promoting the virtues of homeownership that it’s key for new buyers to be prepared and capable owners. At the same time, the findings tell yet another story…

By Howard Husock