AEI’s Perspectives on Opportunity is a policy report series published by the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility (COSM). Contributions to this series include empirical and theoretical analysis of issues related to opportunity in the United States and evidence-based policy proposals to expand opportunity, promote upward mobility, and strengthen social capital. COSM Deputy Director Kevin Corinth is the editor of Perspectives on Opportunity.
Abstract Federal lawmakers created major temporary unemployment benefit programs during the pandemic, which collectively distributed a record $700 billion to unemployed individuals nationwide. Little attention has been paid to wildly divergent state shares of that funding. A review of federal funding provided to states per member of the civilian labor force…
August 27, 2026 | By Matt Weidinger
Abstract Since 1996, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published an annual report on household food insecurity in the United States, which policymakers, program administrators, the media, and researchers closely follow. This report is based on data collected through the Food Security Supplement, which the US Census Bureau had…
July 16, 2026 | By Angela Rachidi and Craig Gundersen
Over the past decade, Opportunity Insights (OI) has transformed the study of intergenerational mobility through innovative uses of administrative data, reshaping the public and scholarly understanding of the factors that affect children’s life prospects. One consistent finding in this literature is the strong association between family structure, especially single parenthood, and upward mobility, though it has received relatively little sustained attention.
March 20, 2026 | By Scott Winship and Mariana Icaza Díaz
Populists on both the political left and right routinely claim that the middle class has been hollowed out. These claims, to the extent they are based on evidence, rely on a relative definition of the middle class, such that if income doubles for every family, the middle class does not grow. Using an absolute definition of the middle class, we find that the “core” middle class has shrunk, but only because more families have become upper-middle class over time.
January 6, 2026 | By Scott Winship and Stephen J. Rose
In recent decades, childcare costs have outpaced family incomes and put pressure on family budgets. Legislators typically consider government subsidies to be the primary solution to rising costs, despite the high cost of broadly subsidizing care and possible adverse effects on families and children. Yet policymakers have paid little attention to how existing regulations limit childcare supply and increase costs, despite research emphasizing this relationship.
October 21, 2025 | By Vanessa Brown Calder
Broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an administrative function with broad implications for SNAP caseloads and expenditures. Though Congress originally established BBCE as a way to lower administrative burden and increase program efficiency, states have used it in recent decades to expand SNAP eligibility beyond statutory income eligibility limits of 130 percent of the federal poverty level and other eligibility conditions.
September 23, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi and Erik Randolph
Using a base year of 2000, we find that if SNAP’s caseload had varied based on the unemployment rate and population growth alone, the program would currently serve between 3 and 6 percent of Americans rather than the 13 percent of Americans it now serves. Moreover, we find that the program’s expenditures would range from $18 billion to $34 billion, less than one-third of the $109 billion currently spent on benefits.
July 22, 2025 | By Angela Rachidi and Thomas O'Rourke
Congress is considering ways to reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $230 billion over 10 years. Reforms will likely include one or more of the following cost-saving elements: reducing the maximum SNAP benefit, reducing deductions, expanding work requirements, and ending broad-based categorical eligibility. I analyze each of these reforms, focusing on the consequences for the SNAP benefit schedule, targeting of benefits to low-income households, and work incentives.
May 14, 2025 | By Kevin Corinth
The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 would expand the child tax credit by increasing the refundable credit, indexing the maximum benefit to inflation, raising the phase-in rate for families with multiple children, and allowing a one-year earnings lookback.
March 28, 2024 | By Kevin Corinth and Scott Winship
Consistent with intuition, we find that food-insecure households skew toward the bottom of the income distribution. However, after adjusting for household composition and regional variation in cost of living, we find that one-quarter of food-insecure households fall within the top three quintiles of the income distribution and that food-insecure households spend about as much as food-secure households do on food per week.
March 26, 2024 | By Angela Rachidi and Thomas O'Rourke
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)....
September 1, 2026 | Scott Winship
Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the Subcommittee on Work and Welfare, thank you for holding this hearing on the 30th anniversary of the 1996 welfare reform law and for the opportunity to submit this written testimony. In early 1995, the forerunner to this subcommittee began drafting legislation...
September 1, 2026 | Matt Weidinger
It’s a depressingly familiar story: taxpayers lost a massive amount of money to waste, fraud, and abuse during the pandemic. On unemployment benefit checks alone, official government estimates suggest almost $200 billion in “improper payments,” which doesn’t include losses under the most abused federal program. Counting those losses, private sector experts estimate $400 billion in misspending,...