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May 8, 2024

Beltway Liberals Are Playing Name Games to Expand the Welfare State

Higher prices aren’t the only kind of inflation coming out of Washington these days. Wildly inflated group names are on the rise, too — and they’re being used as a tool to expand government welfare benefits given even to able-bodied adults without dependents. That’s the term long used by the Department of Agriculture to describe those in their prime working years…

April 29, 2024

New “Scorecard” Report Promotes Better Use of Data to Prevent Unemployment Fraud

Criminals inflicted unprecedented fraud on taxpayer benefits during the pandemic, and some of the most abused programs were those that provided temporary federal unemployment benefits. As we documented in a January 2024 report (Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions), official government tallies of improper payments and fraud stretch toward $200 billion, while unofficial estimates…

April 26, 2024

Washington, District of Benefit Cliffs

As the welfare state expands while policymakers struggle to contain its costs, one unintended result is the creation of significant benefit cliffs. A little-noticed September 2023 report authored by Elias Ilin and Alvaro Sanchez of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (“Mitigating Benefits Cliffs for Low-Income Families: District of Columbia Career Mobility Action Plan as a Case Study”) explains…

April 10, 2024

The Political Landmines Buried in the Latest Jobs Report

CNN on Friday dubbed the latest monthly jobs report a “blowout,” pointing to 303,000 net new jobs created in March. President Joe Biden immediately claimed credit, saying the report “marks a milestone in America’s comeback,” as it indicates a total of “15 million jobs created since I took office.” Meanwhile, the latest data confirm that most…

April 8, 2024

We Still Don’t Know How Much Taxpayers Lost Due to Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Fraud

One of the first programs Congress created to assist Americans thrown out of work by the pandemic was the unprecedented Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. PUA expanded unemployment benefits to millions of independent contractors, the self-employed, and others never before eligible for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) checks. But in some of the worst policy choices of…

April 4, 2024

Biden’s ‘Tax Cut’ Rhetoric Is Really Just Code For Benefit Increases

President Biden’s rhetoric about his new budget proposal suggests it is full of tax relief for working families. For example, one White House fact sheet is headlined “The President’s Budget Cuts Taxes for Working Families and Makes Big Corporations and the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share.” Taking from the rich to give more to working (and even non-working) families is a…

March 25, 2024

Families Slip Back Into Poverty After Pandemic-Era Child Tax Credit Expires

Watch the full video here. During the pandemic, lawmakers dramatically, but temporarily, expanded the social safety net, including more money for families with children. The impacts of those changes are still being felt and debated to this day. Amna Nawaz and producer Sam Lane report on that for our series, America’s Safety Net. Read the…

March 11, 2024

How Many Forms of “Wage Insurance” Do We Need, Exactly?

One of the most controversial policies included in H. R. 7024, the “Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act” that passed the House on January 31, is a provision that would expand the “lookback” to determine eligibility for the child tax credit (CTC). Under current law, adults claiming the CTC for a tax year…

March 7, 2024

Growing Congressional Dysfunction Will Worsen Our Fiscal Problems

Few were surprised when deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) retired in December. While Republican leaders tend to exit quickly after losing committee gavels or leadership posts, the additional departure of other respected senior lawmakers in both parties is damaging legislative capacity on the Hill. Congress is losing the sort of policy-making veterans it needs to craft and pass important legislation. Their reasons for leaving vary and often include Congress’s general inability to pass needed legislation. That dysfunction is evident…