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September 29, 2023
Up To $135 Billion In Pandemic Unemployment Fraud – And Still Counting
…especially two full years after pandemic programs ended. Back-of-the-envelope estimates are helpful, but not nearly good enough to inform policymakers and ensure this disaster never recurs. Finally, as the latest GAO report shows,…
September 15, 2023
Putting This Year’s Poverty Numbers in Context
…subsidies also contributed more to child poverty reduction in 2022 than 2021. As discussed extensively at Tuesday’s AEI event, policymakers and the public are in dire need of a poverty…
September 1, 2023
Despite Staggering Improper Payments, New Labor Department Report Calls for Reviving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
…history of abuse. Policymakers knew PUA was prone to abuse from almost the moment it was created in March 2020. An April 2020 DOL Inspector General (IG) report found that, under the…
August 3, 2023
Another Pandemic Legacy: Removing the EITC’s Work and Earnings Requirement
…growing support for work, some liberal policymakers are now proposing to pay EITC checks even for years when adults don’t work, fundamentally altering the nature of this pro-work program. Total…
July 26, 2023
How Worker Benefits Turn into Welfare
…paid during the pandemic, whose costs were added to the deficit instead of being funded by state and federal payroll taxes. With temporary pandemic programs now expired, liberal policymakers propose…
July 17, 2023
The Latest Extraordinary Findings on Pandemic Improper Payments
A recently released US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report benignly titled “A Framework for Managing Improper Payments in Emergency Assistance Programs” serves as a forward-looking guide for policymakers responding to future emergencies….
June 27, 2023
House Republican Plan Penalizes Marriage
…than 50 percent national caseload decline following the 1996 reforms, meant that within a few years the average state had effectively no work requirement. So lawmakers included a simple update to the caseload reduction credit in the 2006 Deficit…
June 16, 2023
The Missing Context Behind “Cuts” in Fast-Growing Welfare Programs
…Bill, lawmakers should recognize that the debt limit negotiations lacked important context. While the debate often focused on comparatively modest reductions in benefit receipt, it totally ignored significant and ongoing…
May 31, 2023
Ending the Small Checks Scam
…“work participation rate,” an adult must be on TANF, which paid monthly benefits ranging from $146 in Mississippi to $862 in New Hampshire in 2020. Enter clever state lawmakers, who in the…
May 2, 2023
In Next Recession, Don’t Let Uncle Sam Be Uncle Sucker Again
…focus on containing federal spending, there could be constraints on how much Congress provides. How can policymakers best target future federal aid? They should start by ensuring states keep up their end…