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February 3, 2026

Thankfully, Hunger in the US Remains Rare

Hunger in the United States, as most people understand it, is thankfully rare. According to the most recent Household Food Security in the United States report, approximately 5 percent of US households had “very low food security” at some point in 2024. This measure, defined as reduced food intake due to a lack of money,…

January 13, 2026

Major Changes Coming to SNAP in 2026

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) is an important safety-net program that helps reduce hunger and decrease poverty among US households. At the same time, SNAP has significant flaws that make it inefficient, less effective than it could be, and in some cases harmful to upward mobility. However, recent actions by…

January 12, 2026

The “Upward Mobility Act” Seeks to Overcome Benefit Cliffs

Recent scandals in Minnesota have spotlighted billions of dollars lost to welfare fraud across multiple food, health, and childcare programs. Yet even when not being actively ripped off, those programs can still unintentionally yield negative outcomes, such as when they discourage work and keep families trapped in government programs for too long. That’s the message of a…

December 29, 2025

To restore hope for families in poverty, let states lead on welfare reform

The holiday season offers a renewed sense of hope for many American families. But for those stuck in poverty, that hope can be short-lived. One of the most perplexing aspects of America’s social welfare system is that it works against two critical factors for families wanting to escape poverty: work and marriage. With help from…

December 23, 2025

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 (examples here, here, and here) describing the policy problems with the enhanced subsidies, notwithstanding their largely positive treatment in the popular media. Another important reason…

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…

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…

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…

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 not receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly called food stamps) starting November 1st. For background, SNAP provides nearly $8 billion per month in…

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”. The supplemental survey had been attached to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey each December since the late 1990s, asking households a battery of questions…