When I started planning this newsletter, I thought about what kinds of anti-poverty solutions I wanted to find, from expanding programs like the Child Tax Credit to proposing new, ambitious policies like the Baby Bond.
But then I thought about how the US already has so many anti-poverty programs. So before focusing on what else the country should try, I wanted to ask a simple question: Can the United States significantly reduce poverty even if lawmakers don’t create a new program?
The answer, it turns out, is yes – and by a lot.
One of the biggest problems with many of America’s anti-poverty programs — such as Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits and housing vouchers — has nothing to do with the programs themselves but with how state and federal governments choose to administer them.
Put another way, there is Millions of Americans Those who qualify for existing welfare programs but still do not receive all the benefits they are entitled to.
“We have a wide range of different programs with the primary goals of reducing poverty and increasing income and increasing economic security. [people]Especially among families with children,” said Pamela Hurd, a professor of social policy at the University of Michigan. “But the way we’ve implemented these programs is fundamentally undermining that goal.”
Heard is pointing to the administrative burdens attached to many welfare programs — obstacles that make it difficult to get benefits. (He Wrote a book About this.) These Obstacles often look like Long and confusing applications that require many documents to prove that an applicant is indeed qualified, seemingly never-ending waiting lists, job requirements, interviews, and an entire learning process to determine which programs you should apply for and how. There are programs that many recipients don’t even know exist.
“Did you know there’s a program out there, for example, to help you pay for your heating in the winter and your cooling in the summer so your power doesn’t go out or your heating and cooling don’t go out?” Dr. Pashupal
Politicians often justify this administrative burden by saying that they root out fraud, although sometimes they Designed with clear objectives To reduce the number of people taking advantage. But if lawmakers are serious about lifting people out of poverty, removing unnecessary barriers to existing welfare programs would be a good start.
How removing administrative burdens will reduce poverty
Annie Lorre as journalist Keep it in 2021The administrative burden is a “time tax … a public-policy cancer, mediating every American’s relationship with government and wasting countless precious hours of people’s time.”
And the poorer and more marginalized you are, the more likely you are to jump days, weeks and months to get the federal assistance you’re already entitled to.
For example, “Employer-oriented most people [health] The coverage actually doesn’t even understand that of them Coverage is subsidized by the government because we don’t have to do anything to access those subsidies,” Hurd said. In contrast, people who qualify for Medicaid — the primary means by which the federal government provides health coverage to low-income populations — face many hurdles before they can get insurance.
“Look at how difficult it is to access the Medicaid program … a lot of documentation, the enrollment process — people always get kicked out because they don’t do one of the 100 steps they’re supposed to,” Heard said. “And then you have to do it every year.” (For reference, 21 percent of federal health insurance subsidies (Go to employer-based coverage and Medicaid gets about 25 percent.)
Fixing the administrative burden and streamlining the subsidy disbursement process will significantly reduce poverty. A Urban Institute reportwhich looked at a hypothetical scenario in which everyone eligible for certain assistance programs actually received benefits, found that overall poverty would decrease by 31 percent and child poverty would decrease by 44 percent.
Of course, if the federal government were to figure out how to make its social programs fully efficient, it would have to solve another problem: Many of the programs that already exist are not properly funded. Housing vouchers, for example, are Heavily underfundedDespite an increase in the number of eligible families, they are serving fewer families than two decades ago. (Funding is an issue we’ll address in a future issue.)
How lawmakers can remove administrative burdens
It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to picture a world where Americans can get the benefits they deserve without much hassle. For starters, one model already exists: Social Security, of the country most successful Anti-poverty programs are highly efficient in providing benefits to retirees because it Applying is very easy This advantage compared to other programs.
“That’s the really interesting thing about it [retirement] The program is that basically everyone who’s eligible gets those benefits, and there’s almost no fraud in the program,” Heard said. “We designed that program so that it’s not burdensome for participants.”
Just a few years ago, during the COVID-19 public health emergency, the federal government made it easier for most people to enroll in Medicaid. Keeping people in the program Instead they have to apply every year. Part of the reason many people lose Medicaid insurance is not because they no longer qualify, but because they may have gotten something wrong or incomplete on the forms. “Seventy percent People losing coverage are losing coverage for what they think are procedural reasons, which is basically like a paperwork problem,” Hurd said.
But since the public emergency ended and states began recertifying recipients each year, Millions of people lost their insurance.
Fixing it may not seem politically feasible, though Majority of Americans support Reduce administrative burden. Because Republicans often deride public programs, Deliberately making it difficult To get benefits, and establish rules that prove unsuccessful, ie Job requirements. Still, some Democrat-controlled states have even more, if not more, difficult application processes for welfare recipients. For example, California’s food stamp program has one Minimum participation rate What is their excuse in the country?
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