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Commentary
How Fixing SNAP’s Payment Error Rate Formula Would Change State Cost Shares
For the first time in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), starting…
Op-Ed
The Ongoing Battle to Defend Welfare Reform
Welfare reform replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families…
Report
Comment on CMS-2454-IFC: Clarifying “Household” for the SNAP Exclusion from the Medicaid Community Engagement Requirement
Comment on Interim Final Rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of…
Multimedia
Discussing Medicaid work requirements: Corinth on C-SPAN’s ‘Washington Journal’
Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility Deputy Director Kevin Corinth discusses Medicaid work requirements on…
Article
Poverty and Dependency in the United States, 1939–2023
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty. This set in motion the…
Commentary
Opportunity Book: A New Tool for Connecting Policymakers with Innovative Ideas
Today the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is…
Blog Post
How Non-disabled Medicaid Recipients Without Children Spend Their Time
The reconciliation bill passed by the United States House of Representatives imposes community engagement requirements…
Multimedia
An Evaluation of Approaches to Cut and Reform SNAP
House Republicans narrowly passed their version of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last week, and…
Commentary
The Share of Medicaid Recipients in Compliance with the House Bill’s Community Engagement Requirement
The reconciliation proposal approved by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2025 would impose community engagement requirements on nondisabled, working-age Medicaid recipients without dependent children, requiring at least 80 hours per month of work, training, education, or community service during a specified number of months to maintain eligibility. Analysis using Survey of Income and Program Participation data indicates that, as of December 2022, 44–60 percent of the 18.2 million recipients subject to the requirement would already be in compliance, depending on how many months of participation states require. As a result, 7.3 million–10.3 million recipients would need to increase their work or other qualifying activities to retain Medicaid coverage.
Report
An Evaluation of Cost-Saving Reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Congress is considering ways to reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $230 billion over 10 years. Reforms will likely include one or more of the following cost-saving elements: reducing the maximum SNAP benefit, reducing deductions, expanding work requirements, and ending broad-based categorical eligibility. I analyze each of these reforms, focusing on the consequences for the SNAP benefit schedule, targeting of benefits to low-income households, and work incentives.
Multimedia
Poorly Defined: Reforming the Poverty Line | POLICY LENS
Ever since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “war on poverty” in 1964, the US…
AEI Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility Working Paper
An Evaluation of Cost Saving Reforms of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
AbstractCongress is considering ways to reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by…