For at least a generation, policymakers have been talking about welfare cliffs. Federal and state governments have been waging this war on poverty but with little progress beyond an expansive (and at times, perverse) web of programs and trillions in spending.
Unfortunately, if one was born into this system, the odds are stacked against them on whether they navigate their way out, including when families with working adults are presented with opportunities for financial promotions.
Much of this “cliff effect,” whereas a family faces a reduction or complete elimination of welfare benefits upon even a small increase in earnings, spans from the fact that Washington has created a program to fill every void, big or small, in a person’s life: healthcare, food assistance, childcare, utility assistance, housing, education, and employment, to name a few.
Instead of creating mobility, we have inadvertently crafted a massive suite of programs that, when stacked, creates a trap instead of an off-ramp — or a cliff instead of a lift.
My colleagues and I agree that there are merits to this issue, but we diverge on solutions.
While there is no one way to mitigate every penalty and disincentive associated with our nation’s safety net, the immediate reaction should not be to increase spending and expand eligibility; we have at least 50 years of evidence that show us those solutions just might not be working as intended. And on the heels of over $126 billion in nutrition-related spending, it is time to think differently about how we help those in need.
There is so much more we can do for those who are trapped in our social safety net programs. But we are limited by perpetual discourse in Washington that has continued to stymie true reform on this and many other important issues of concern to the public. Let’s be frank: Higher enrollment equates to higher program costs for both federal and state governments. And no one should equate that with helping people.
There certainly are revenue-neutral approaches to be considered, including a focus on employment.
A job is the best way to unravel a generation’s worth of knots and pitfalls in our safety net programs.
I have said repeatedly that while work waivers and benefits granted by the Congress as well as the former and current administrations were logical in response to COVID-19, they are now clearly keeping employable individuals idle and disengaged, which reaps significant negative impacts on families who want nothing more than to earn a living. A recent Morning Consult poll revealed that unemployment insurance benefits reduced the number of accepted job offers by an estimated 1.84 million over the course of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, there was not a lot of funding nor attention paid to programs such as SNAP Employment and Training, even as we near a post-pandemic economy that looks wildly different than it did in February 2020.
SNAP E&T provides free services to recipients, including training and job readiness and placement, and it is high time that states and the federal government refocus their resources on policies that lift people up. These programs, especially when paired with approaches that engage the whole family, pool community resources and supports, and work with private sector employers, can be truly life-changing for working families.
As Angela Rachidi writes, as with any government intervention, the great challenge rests in balancing families’ need for assistance with the consequences that government assistance introduces, such as the potential for reduced work effort or the experience of a financial shock when expanded benefits expire. Time will tell how the pandemic-related expansions to food programs will play out and what the effects on families will be.
But as we inch toward the end of the pandemic that upended our way of life, it is time to rein in our runaway safety net programs and preserve them for those in need and aim to ensure the “cliff” effect does not deter families from regaining independence from welfare.
Don Bacon represents Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the ranking member of the Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations Subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee.
