America’s broken safety net system has over 80 programs, costs $1.6 trillion annually, and perpetually underperforms. It’s inefficient, costly, and perversely functions like a snare net that traps people in poverty.

But reform could be on the horizon, led by the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE can address these staggering failures by identifying how lawmakers can streamline programs and cut costs. Real reform will free people to live the American Dream.

America’s safety net is an unnavigable labyrinth. In 2015, the House Ways and Means Committee illustrated the absurdity of this system in one graphic showing all 80-plus programs and just some of the red tape. Since most people working in or researching this maze barely comprehend it, how can we expect tens of millions of program recipients to?

This “system” includes over 20 programs dispensing education assistance—17 provide housing, and 16 offer various social services. Administered by equally inefficient bureaucracies and overseen by more than a dozen federal agencies, the system is a recipe for wasteful spending—especially as budgets for safety net programs have ballooned.

Worse than their inefficiencies, this maze makes escaping poverty harder. A recent event at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) detailed how these programs discourage work and marriage, the two best ways for people to rise out of poverty and strengthen their communities.

The most pernicious aspect of the snare net is the “benefit cliff.” It occurs when someone earns a raise (through a promotion or new job), then loses more than what was gained because of higher taxes and fewer benefits. How steep are these cliffs? Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank experts found “a hypothetical single adult, one child (aged three) family living in DC would receive no financial gain from a wage increase between $11,000 and $65,000 of earned income.”

These cliffs mean it can be financially rational, even advisable, to not step up the income ladder. A Sutherland Institute report shows a remarkable 43% of Utah benefit recipients admitted to doing things like working fewer hours and not getting married to avoid losing government benefits.

There are several steps DOGE can take to increase the safety net’s effectiveness and reduce costs, arising from an AEI-led working group on safety net reform.

DOGE can help the new Administration order agencies to rewrite regulations, foster consistency, and reduce duplication. Currently, program regulations have competing eligibility standards and even inconsistent definitions of child, family, and income. These irregularities result in higher administrative costs for taxpayers, create confusion for recipients, and invite fraud and abuse.

Such inefficiencies saddle state governments administering the programs with burdensome, conflicting, and expensive reporting requirements. By drafting guidelines to promote coordination across federal agencies, DOGE will allow states to streamline convoluted reporting processes to one federal agency.

DOGE can recommend how to work across federal agencies to empower states to test ways of fixing work penalties, marriage disincentives, and benefit cliffs by opening new and existing opportunities for state innovation. DOGE will be able to propose multi-program waivers and state demonstration projects, creating programs better suited to their residents’ needs.

Sadly, federal agencies have historically blocked state innovation waivers. After the Biden administration terminated Georgia’s Medicaid waiver, a federal court reinstated it, concluding the termination was arbitrary and capricious. By drafting an executive order clarifying states’ statutory rights to pursue innovative proposals, DOGE can prevent this.

Beyond conflicting information, the IT systems currently used to run safety-net programs weigh down any chance at efficiency. If DOGE harnesses the power of the private sector, entrepreneurs could develop technologies to upgrade, integrate, and streamline eligibility systems necessary to achieve efficiencies and bring down costs. This would also provide critical program metrics to ensure programs are working as intended.

Finally, to help achieve DOGE’s stated goal of reducing the federal budget by $2 trillion, it will need to identify top cost savings opportunities for Congress to implement. Reforms help people rise out of poverty through program consolidation, reducing administrative costs, and ensuring states are better stakeholders with financial skin-in-the-game.

The hallmark 1996 welfare reform law should serve as a guide, which converted an open-ended, federal cash welfare program into a fixed block grant. The law increased work and earnings and reduced benefit dependence and poverty, while ultimately saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

Each year we fail to fix our broken safety net, we waste tremendous financial and human resources. DOGE can turn our snare net into the launchpad America’s poor need to craft a brighter future for their families.