The Welfare Debate The US Should Be Having
When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rolled out her Green New Deal, she called on the government to provide economic security to those “unwilling to work.” Conservatives correctly seized on this to argue that the Democratic Party seemed to be moving quite a bit further to the left in its views on economic policy.
The controversy was reignited this week, when first daughter Ivanka Trump rejected a “minimum guarantee” for people who are unwilling to work. Ocasio-Cortez shot back. Expect more volleys to follow.
But the shift in thinking about safety-net policies primarily as tools to help low-income Americans get and keep jobs is not as straightforward as it seems.
Implicit in the argument that people who are unwilling to work have forfeited their claim to economic security is that work is available. But jobs may not always be available, both for people who are willing to work and those who aren’t, particularly during economic downturns. During the Great Recession, there were over six unemployed workers for every job opening.
Another major challenge in weighing the balance between responsibility and economic security is what to do about the hard cases. How should policy handle the situation where a person is truly unwilling to work? Or a person who loses his job and won’t realistically be successfully retrained, but who is a decade away from retirement?
What do those who are relatively well off owe the poor? What, if anything, do the most vulnerable in society owe their neighbors? These questions have no objective answer.
I tend to lean more toward the importance of personal responsibility than economic security. Public policy should not create an entitlement to economic security for all who are unwilling to work. Instead, just as society has obligations to its most vulnerable members to provide a base of security, those who receive assistance also incur obligations to those providing it.
The U.S. safety net often does a decent job of reflecting these values while also being flexible enough to deal with the hard cases and economic contingencies that often arise. Some features of these programs can serve as a model for thinking about how to fix and improve the system overall.
For all the talk about work obligations, programs can (and often do) have activity requirements rather than strict employment mandates. Those who receive public assistance are required to contribute to society in exchange for the benefits they receive.
Some safety net and social insurance programs are relatively more generous during economic downturns. States can request temporary waivers, for example, from enforcing time limits on food stamps when unemployment is high and jobs are relatively scarce. And the unemployment insurance program offers additional compensation to laid-off workers when joblessness in a state is particularly high.
In addition, there should be measures to bolster labor demand during recessions and in depressed areas.
Rather than impose a work requirement on every individual receiving a safety net benefit, programs can require that a certain share of the total number of beneficiaries be engaged in a work activity.
For example, under the 1996 welfare reforms, half of families receiving cash from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in each state must be engaged in a work-related activity for at least 30 hours per week. Ninety percent of two-parent families in each state are required to be engaged in work under TANF.
But a key to making the safety net more pro-work will always require balancing the trade-off between personal responsibility and economic security, and not abandoning either.
Stanford Scholars Examine the Advantages of Informal Health Expertise
Proposed Flood Hazard Determinations
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News