OPINION:
Work improves lives. We in the Midwest know this is true.
In the last few decades, the Midwest has been a case study in the effectiveness of work requirements in welfare to create opportunity, increase household incomes and revive economies. With strengthened work requirements a key part of House Republicans’ debt ceiling bill, lawmakers in Washington should look to America’s heartland to see just how powerful work requirements really are.
Think back to the 1990s, when work requirements truly became part of the national conversation. It wasn’t a D.C. bureaucrat or a Southern lawmaker that showed America how successful work requirements could be. It was Wisconsin then-Gov. Tommy Thompson who pioneered “Wisconsin Works” legislation with the goal of basing welfare on work.
The reform was powerful because it harnessed the power of work to improve lives. It prioritized a paycheck and acknowledged that a job isn’t a formality — it’s the key to upward mobility, economic stability, opportunity and growth.
Mr. Thompson’s trailblazing paved the way for one of the greatest bipartisan triumphs in recent memory, the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which implemented modest work requirements in the country’s cash welfare program. The 1996 bill was compelling even to then-Sen. Joe Biden, who remarked that “the culture of welfare must be replaced with the culture of work” when he voted for the bill.
Americans of both parties recognized back then that people deserve the opportunity that comes with a job — not an endless cycle of dependency.
The results were astounding and a testament to the power of tying welfare benefits to a job: People increased their skills. Their incomes rose. And record numbers left welfare and didn’t return.
States caught on and implemented their own state-level work requirements in food stamps. In 2015, 1 in 6 Missourians were receiving food stamps. Work requirements had been waived for years — 82% of able-bodied adults without dependents on food stamps were unemployed.
That year, the Missouri Legislature reinstated work requirements, changing the trajectory of the state and thousands of lives. Enrollment of able-bodied adults without dependents declined by a staggering 85%. Incomes increased dramatically by an estimated 70% in the first few months after people left the program. Wages eventually doubled, far outpacing any welfare benefits. With more Missourians in the workforce, tax revenue jumped by $12 million per year.
In 2011, Kansas then-Gov. Sam Brownback strengthened the state’s cash welfare program, which was plagued by lax enforcement standards. As a result, thousands of Kansans found jobs and left TANF — because working paid better. Kansans returned to work in more than 600 industries, and saw their incomes increase by an average of 104% within a year of leaving the program.
Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska have all taken a similar approach with their own work requirements in food stamps.
Despite the success of federal work requirements, they’ve been eroded over time by state waivers intended to be limited, especially in food stamps. More recently, the pandemic drastically expanded welfare enrollment, suspending work requirements far beyond the initial economic shutdowns and keeping able-bodied adults out of the workforce despite millions of open jobs.
It’s not the 1990s anymore, and the nation faces new, unique challenges — high inflation, record-high job openings, dwindling trust funds in Social Security and Medicare, and staggering levels of dependency. And Illinoisans know all too well what happens when pensioners outpace active workers.
The challenges are new, but there’s a proven solution back on the table: work requirements.
The work requirement at the center of the heated debt ceiling debate proposes that childless, able-bodied adults ages 18 to 55 work, train or volunteer for as little as 10 hours per week as a condition of eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid. House Republicans give exemptions for pregnant women, individuals who are mentally or physically unable to work, those in a drug or alcohol treatment program, enrolled in school part time, parents and primary caretakers.
It’s a reasonable and — compared with much more robust work requirements in some states — modest plan. If history is any indication, requiring able-bodied adults without dependents to work would pay dividends. Doing so would move more than 4 million adults off the sidelines and back into the workforce, which would spur significant economic growth. A recent study by the Foundation for Government Accountability estimates this could increase real gross domestic product by $149 billion in just one year once implemented. Just as in the past, household incomes would rise and far outpace welfare benefits for those who leave these programs.
And significantly, adding more people to the workforce would offer longevity to other important social programs. We could see Social Security revenue increase by $64 billion and Medicare by $25 billion over the next decade.
In other words, American lives and the economy would change for the better, just as we saw in Missouri, in Kansas, and in the nation at large in the 1990s. Increased incomes. Economic growth. Stability. Independence. Opportunity.
Truthfully, there has never been a better time to strengthen work requirements in welfare.
Congress and the president should keep work requirements on the table as part of debt ceiling negotiations. If they’ll just take a brief look back in history — especially in our region — they’ll see the real, proven power of work to improve lives and grow the economy.
• Sarah Coffey is the senior editor at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
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