COSM’s commentary page is home to timely analysis of pressing topics.
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…
December 2, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi and Matt Weidinger
The Trump administration recently announced a major shift to the scoring rubric for the federal government’s main source of homeless aid—the Continuum of Care program—which annually distributes $3.9 billion in competitive funding to local communities. The new rubric will target funds to recovery-oriented, time-limited housing programs, a reversal of a…
November 25, 2025 | By Kevin Corinth
Increasing fertility is an objective for many countries worldwide, but Hungary’s pro-natal policies have received an outsized amount of attention in recent years. Hungary is unique because its pro-natal policies have been bold and its objectives ambitious. Since 2010, Hungary has implemented a variety of policies, including zero-interest “baby-expecting” loans…
November 21, 2025 | By Vanessa Brown Calder
US pregnancy and postpartum deaths receive substantial news coverage, and reporting is frequently alarmist. This summer, a LiveScience article claimed that “pregnancy is deadlier in the US than in other wealthy countries.” The article stated that there were 19 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in the US, or…
November 13, 2025 | By Vanessa Brown Calder
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…
November 10, 2025 | By Matt Weidinger
The USDA announced plans to discontinue future Household Food Security reports, ending the annual supplemental survey that, among other things, was used as the government’s official statistic on “food insecurity”. The supplemental survey had been attached to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey each December since the late 1990s, asking…
September 23, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi
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.
August 7, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi
Recent proposals to expand the work requirement in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been almost universally portrayed as a punitive effort to push low-income recipients off the program. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that over 3 million people will leave SNAP due to the work requirement expansions. However, it is…
June 24, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi
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.
May 20, 2025 | By Kevin Corinth
As part of Congressional Republicans’ drive to craft “one big beautiful bill” reflecting Donald Trump’s tax and spending agenda, the House Agriculture committee on May 14 approved several proposals that would reduce federal spending by shifting some current federal welfare costs to states. At the same time, dissatisfied conservative members…
May 19, 2025 | By Matt Weidinger
September 11, 2026 | Kevin Corinth and Hannah Mayhew
Abstract Between 2017 and 2025, at least 122 pilots across 33 states and the District of Columbia evaluated the effects of a guaranteed basic income (GBI), allocating $481 million in GBI payments to more than 40,000 recipients. We summarize these studies’ methodologies and findings, focusing on their employment effects. Among the...
September 3, 2026 | Angela Rachidi and Jessi Troyan
In the season premiere of Cardinal Direction, host Jessi Troyan sits down with American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Angela Rachidi to examine America’s social safety net and why programs intended to help families can sometimes stand in the way of stability and upward mobility. Drawing on nearly three decades of...
September 2, 2026 | Angela Rachidi
Payment errors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) have received considerable attention in recent months. While much of the debate has revolved around the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s (OBBBA) new requirements surrounding SNAP payment errors and the impact on states, many have overlooked the people most affected...
September 2, 2026 | Scott Winship
This is an edited version of Scott’s recent testimony before the Work & Welfare Subcommittee of the House Ways & Means Committee. In early 1995, the forerunner to this subcommittee began drafting legislation that would lead, 18 months later, to the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)....