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March 5, 2026
Summary and Analysis of the “Stop Unemployment Fraud Act”
Background This week, senior House and Senate Members are introducing legislation designed to prevent a repeat of runaway fraud and abuse that afflicted unemployment benefit programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of the legislation are Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK),…
March 5, 2026
States Can Strengthen Families and Fight Welfare Dependence and Fraud
For six decades, Washington has waged a War on Poverty with ever‑increasing sums of money. According to the House Budget Committee, federal means‑tested welfare spending now exceeds $1 trillion a year, with more than $12 trillion projected over the next decade. When counted as income for recipients, all that spending has reduced poverty, even as it has left growing…
February 25, 2026
On the Federal Deficit, Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit Won’t Be Enough
If you look closely, you can see some progress on cutting federal spending. At least that’s the conclusion of the respected Kim Strassel, writing recently in the Wall Street Journal before the Congressional Budget Office released its broad budget and economic forecast for the coming decade. Strassel compared the past two fiscal years and found that “overall discretionary spending is down by $1 billion.”…
January 27, 2026
How to Prevent a Repeat of Massive Fraud and Abuse
Welfare fraud scandals in Minnesota have focused the nation’s attention on benefit abuse, and the US Department of Labor recently detailed a team there to investigate whether unemployment insurance (UI) benefits have been ripped off. There’s a good chance the answer is yes, and that some of the blame resides with how we pay for…
January 21, 2026
Funding the Administration of Unemployment Benefits: Overview and Reforms to Improve Efficiency and Program Integrity
Executive Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant flaws in the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) system, which resulted in the improper payment of at least $191 billion—and potentially upwards of $400 billion—in taxpayer funds. The direct causes of those extensive losses included the poor design of temporary federal benefit programs, which opened the door to abuse,…
December 23, 2025
The Policy Lessons from Minnesota’s Massive Welfare Fraud
Numerous reviewers have spotlighted shocking welfare fraud perpetrated by members of the Somali community in Minnesota. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel (“The Lesson of Minnesota’s Fraud”) recently described how “Somali fraudsters bilked taxpayers out of more than $1 billion” while arguing the policy lessons extend well beyond Minnesota’s border. She’s right about…
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 10, 2025
The Welfare Program You Never Heard About During the Shutdown
Americans have heard plenty about how, effective November 1, the federal government shutdown suspended regular food stamp payments to 42 million individuals. Food stamps are important welfare benefits paid to low-income families—or in recent weeks not paid. For all that attention on food stamps, however, almost no one has mentioned what once was the nation’s…
September 23, 2025
Trump Halts ‘Food Insecurity’ Report — Because Democrats’ Doublespeak Is Falling Flat
Last week President Donald Trump’s Agriculture Department canceled the government’s annual Household Food Security survey — arguing the “nonstatutory report has become overpoliticized,” and amounts to “subjective, liberal fodder” that does “nothing more than fearmonger.” Experts on the left predictably objected, but Trump can point to support from an unexpected place: The Democrat-aligned group Third Way. In a recent memo, the center-left think tank…