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May 23, 2023
The White House Defender of Welfare Work Requirements
If someone asked you to name a US President who also was a longtime defender of work requirements for welfare benefits, whom might you guess? Ronald Reagan? Donald Trump? George…
May 17, 2023
Is President Biden About to Triangulate Democrats on Welfare Work Requirements?
On Sunday, President Joe Biden signaled his openness to expanding work requirements for key welfare benefits as part of the debt limit deal he is currently negotiating with Congress. Of…
May 11, 2023
The House Acts to Recover More Pandemic Unemployment Fraud
FacebookTwitterLinkedIn This week, the House is considering Republican-authored legislation (H.R. 1163, the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act) designed to promote more recovery of fraudulent unemployment checks paid during the pandemic,…
May 3, 2023
Work-for-Welfare Gains Traction Among Republicans
Last week, U.S. House Republicans included expanded work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps, and cash welfare benefits in their legislation to extend the federal debt limit. As employers continue to struggle to find workers, states,…
May 2, 2023
In Next Recession, Don’t Let Uncle Sam Be Uncle Sucker Again
Following recent bank failures, expectations for a recession have revived. If unemployment rises significantly, Congress will likely re-open its stimulus policy playbook — including by extending unemployment benefits. Yet given an increased…
December 9, 2022
“Automatic Stimulus”: How It Would Have Increased the Record Unemployment Benefits Paid During the Great Recession and Pandemic
Key Points During the pandemic, a series of temporary federal programs that operated from March 2020 until September 2021 provided record unemployment benefit expansions. While those temporary programs followed the…
September 21, 2022
Lessons from the Unprecedented Fraud and Abuse of the Unemployment Benefits System During the Pandemic
…administration of the Unemployment Insurance system. My name is Matt Weidinger, and I am a senior fellow and Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute. I previously…
July 2, 2021
Addressing the Shortcomings of the Supplemental Poverty Measure
Key Points The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) partly improves on the Official Poverty Measure but still suffers from several shortcomings that limit its usefulness as an effective poverty measure. The…