All Research
Commentary
Thankfully, Hunger in the US Remains Rare
Hunger in the United States, as most people understand it, is thankfully rare. According to…
Commentary
Major Changes Coming to SNAP in 2026
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) is an important safety-net program…
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…
Commentary
What To Do About Benefit Cliffs?
Everyone wants poor families to work their way off welfare and ascend the income ladder….
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…
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 years. While these reductions are substantial, they require important context.
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…
Commentary
SNAP is About Nutrition: My Response to Zycher
In a recent blog post, my AEI colleague Benjamin Zycher took issue with a letter…
Commentary
In Case of Emergency, Open Block Grant: Part 2
Congress’s efforts to produce “one big, beautiful bill” that reflects President Donald Trump’s tax and…
Commentary
In Case of Emergency, Open Block Grant: Part 1
Congress’s efforts to produce “one big, beautiful bill” that reflects President Donald Trump’s tax and…
Commentary
What Do You Call an Automatic Stabilizer that Doesn’t Shrink When Conditions Improve? The Biden Food Stamps Blowout
Last month the Wall Street Journal editorial board (“The Great Biden Welfare Blowout”) reviewed the…
Commentary
President Trump’s USDA Should Fix Food Stamp Work Requirement Waivers
A 2019 regulation would tighten the criteria states use to waive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. Under existing policy, states can qualify for waivers using several broad criteria and can group contiguous areas together, allowing many counties to receive waivers even when unemployment rates are relatively low. Using county-level data from 1997 to 2023, simulations show that the 2019 rule would substantially reduce waiver eligibility, increase the responsiveness of waivers to changes in local unemployment, and better target waivers to areas with the weakest labor markets.