September 17, 2024
Doing Right by Kids: Leveraging Social Capital and Innovation to Increase Opportunity
Material hardship among American children has never been lower. This seeming victory in the War…
December 19, 2023
How to Better Measure Poverty
June 13, 2023
The Great School Rethink
In The Great School Rethink, education policy sentinel Frederick M. Hess offers a pithy and perceptive…
December 31, 2022
A Safety Net for the Future: Overcoming the Root Causes of Poverty
The 1996 welfare reform law replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, shifting the safety net toward work requirements, time limits, and greater state flexibility and accountability. Following these reforms, welfare caseloads fell sharply, employment among single mothers increased, and child poverty declined. However, many other programs subsequently expanded due in part to their lack of similar pro-work features, contributing to a complex system of rising spending on over 80 federal means-tested programs. Federal reforms should refocus the broader safety net on promoting work and marriage, strengthen state incentives to move recipients into employment, and reform refundable tax credits to better reward work while encouraging state innovation and accountability.
November 17, 2022
American Renewal: A Conservative Plan to Strengthen the Social Contract and Save the Country’s Finances
The purpose of American Renewal: A Conservative Plan to Strengthen the Social Contract and Save the…
May 4, 2020
How To Educate an American
In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives’ ideas to reform America’s lagging education system…
January 1, 2017
A Safety Net That Works: Improving Federal Programs for Low-Income Americans
Despite reductions in material hardship, many Americans believe that progress against poverty has been limited and that upward mobility remains difficult. Much of the improvement in living standards for low-income families has come from government assistance rather than increased earnings from work, contributing to dissatisfaction with current antipoverty efforts. A more effective approach would emphasize employment for able-bodied adults, stable two-parent families, and a safety net that reduces hardship while supporting work. Improving federal assistance programs therefore requires understanding how they function and reforming them to better promote earnings and upward mobility.