Work Disincentives Hit the Near-Poor Hardest. Better Cash Assistance Could Help.
In many ways, America’s social safety net falls short of those of our liberal democratic peers, yet we have no shortage of policies intended to provide social protections. We have programs at all levels of government that offer help with family income security, child care, nutrition, health care, housing, education, unemployment, disability, and other needs. But too often, each program has been developed in a silo, with little thought to how it interacts with others.
The result is a social policy landscape that is hard to navigate for families needing help. Along the road from dependency to self-sufficiency, they encounter benefit cliffs, disincentive deserts, eligibility barriers, and other obstacles. Too many fall wayside and remain poor, despite all the programs that ought to make their lives easier.
This commentary explores this social policy landscape. It reveals a pattern of work disincentives that bear hardest on the near-poor, that is, on households that are almost at the point of achieving full economic self-sufficiency, but are not quite there yet. After an overview of the terrain, it explains how greater emphasis on cash assistance could help make the social safety net more effective and more work-friendly.
