The policy success of linking work and welfare has eroded, especially since the pandemic. It’s time to restore that success.
The policy success of linking work and welfare has eroded, especially since the pandemic. It’s time to restore that success.
I t’s time to fix welfare again. Since the historic reforms of the 1990s, welfare has been steadily divorced from work once more. Today, hardly anyone on welfare is required to pursue employment or an upward path in life. Not only is this disastrous for welfare recipients themselves, but it’s also driving America’s record worker shortage. On June 9, we introduced two bills that will restore a welfare system that works in every sense of the word.
Our bills are built on a foundation of opportunity. To start, we apply the first-ever nationwide work requirement to the Medicaid program. As a condition of receiving free federal health-care benefits, all able-bodied adults without young children would be required to work, volunteer, or participate in education and training programs at least part-time. As many as 34 million able-bodied adults are on Medicaid today. Well over half are not working, and many more work fewer than 20 hours a week, which is considered part-time.
We also strengthen work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, typically known as food stamps. While the reforms of the ’90s contained some work requirements, they also had massive loopholes that most states have used to avoid implementing this policy for long periods of time and for large groups of people. We close those loopholes and strengthen the requirement, ensuring that 16 million able-bodied adults without young children would have to fulfill the same minimum part-time requirement. At least two-thirds are unemployed, and virtually all of the rest are underemployed.
These policies would transform the lives of low-income Americans. The two largest welfare programs would finally ensure that those who can pursue employment actually do so. By entering the workforce, millions of families would likely earn their way out of Medicaid and food stamps in short order. They’d replace government dependency with the economic independence that every American deserves.
Taxpayers would also save tens of billions of dollars a year, protecting safety-net programs that are already in danger of financial implosion. States that have put work requirements on Medicaid and food stamps have seen more people find self-sufficiency and taxpayers spend less money.
And by finding gainful employment, current welfare recipients would transform the economy. A staggering 11.4 million jobs are currently open nationwide, and we hear from small businesses every day that workers are impossible to find. With these work requirements, there would be more than enough new job seekers to fill every open role in America.
Finding jobs will benefit welfare recipients and their families for the rest of their lives. Research shows that replacing welfare with work leads to better mental health, better education results for children, and even longer lives. And the economic impact will be extraordinary and long-lasting. Businesses of all sizes will grow and do more for their communities. Innovators will find it easier to raise the bar.
We could even spark a new era of entrepreneurship, which is urgently needed. The current welfare system doesn’t expect much of people. With work requirements, people who’ve been undervalued could prove to be some of the biggest overachievers in the country.
Our bills represent the antithesis of the Biden agenda, which can only be summed up as “welfare over work.” By enacting new welfare programs and endlessly extending pandemic policies that block work, the president and his allies in Congress have pushed people out of the labor force and exacerbated the worst worker shortage in American history. After more than a year and a half of failed welfare experiments, and after nearly three decades of weakening and ultimately eliminating existing work requirements, the best path is to reconnect public assistance to upward mobility.
Work requirements should be a centerpiece of the Republican agenda heading into the midterm elections. They represent a clear contrast with the Democratic Party. They also reflect what polls show Americans overwhelmingly want: A welfare system that’s connected to work. Congress could pass our bills as early as next year, and even if President Biden vetoes them, that’s a welcome and necessary debate. Let him explain why he supports holding back so many of the least fortunate, instead of helping them make the most of their lives.
Work requirements could soon become a reality if the groundwork is laid now. We know they’re effective. We know what happens when they’re eroded or abandoned. The economy will keep faltering and more lives and dreams will be broken until we fix welfare once again.
Rodney Davis represents Illinois’s 13th congressional district. Jake LaTurner represents Kansas’s second congressional district.