Politicians running in Tuesday’s midterm elections have been trying to reach voters’ hearts through their wallets, pointing to the economy, stock market, job numbers, tax cuts and wage growth.
During his first 100 days in office, President Trump referred to people who have fallen on hard times due to outsourcing of jobs to overseas factories as “the forgotten people.”
But a new study suggests that these people have, in fact, been forgotten in the run-up to the midterm elections on Tuesday. It says the poorest of Americans will not benefit from many of the current administration’s social and economic policies.
Tuesday’s elections follow two years where President Trump and Republican lawmakers have been working hard to repeal or restrict Obama-era laws and regulations.
For example, a massive tax overhaul was signed into law in December 2017, but an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act fell short.
On the public assistance front, Trump has called for tightened work requirements for food stamp recipients.
Safety net programs can be ‘good for the economy’
However, there are other gauges for widespread financial health also worth considering, the study by the Urban Institute argues, including things like food stamp funding levels or allocations to Medicaid.
A broad social welfare safety net is a key part of economic health and an effective backstop for needy families, according to a study released late Monday by Urban Institute study, a nonprofit policy group based in Washington, D.C., analyzing census data from 1992 to 2011.
“Safety net programs are not just good for families in tough times; they can also be good for the economy,” researchers wrote. “When program spending increases during a recession and puts money in the hands of low-income families …people with low incomes are more likely to spend money and stimulate the economy.”
The study delved into the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation. It’s the first analysis of its kind to measure public assistance program participation with the number of hardships experienced by participants.
Here are some of the findings:
• Participation in either the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or public health insurance resulted in a 48% percent reduction in low-income families’ inability to meet essential expenses.
• Those same forms of public assistance also helped to cut “food insufficiency” — where people eat less because they simply don’t have enough money — by 72%.
• There was also a 40% reduction in unmet medical or dental needs, though researchers noted the figure carried a large margin of error. The findings pertained to Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, pre-dating enactment of the Affordable Care Act.
• The percentage of low income families reporting at least one hardship to U.S. Census officials was highest in 1992, at 51%. It dropped to 43% in 1995 and then hovered between 44% and 47% through 2011.
The Democratic House Committee on the Budget says the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP encourages people to work.
“The federal social safety net continues to lift millions of Americans out of poverty, to provide food on the table of hard-working low-income families, to cover health care costs for those in need, and to help provide housing for those who might otherwise be on the streets,” it says.
Many Republican lawmakers disagree. They have, for example, argued that such benefits can put a financial strain on federal government coffers. What’s more, GOP leaders argue government-sponsored benefits in their current form don’t help get low-income individuals out of poverty.
‘The American economy has seen strong growth and low unemployment, but this rising tide is lifting some boats more than others.’ —Signe-Mary McKernan, economist at the Urban Institute
Shredding the social safety net is precarious public policy, said Signe-Mary McKernan, the study’s lead author. She said critics have argued that safety net programs don’t work, given that poverty hasn’t been wiped out.
Yet “our analysis suggests hardship would be even higher without these programs,” said McKernan, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Opportunity and Ownership initiative and a vice president of its Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population.
“The American economy has seen strong growth and low unemployment, but this rising tide is lifting some boats more than others,” she said, adding that these sorts of programs helped counteract uneven economic development over decades.
McKernan said millions of Americans need help to get back on their feet. Almost 40% of adults in a December 2017 survey said had trouble paying for at least one necessity, like food, health care or housing.
Another recent survey said it’d be ill-advised to trim food stamp funding in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Urban Institute said tighter reins on public assistance are not an exclusively Republican issue. Funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program has fallen during both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations from 1990 to 2015, it noted.
Medicaid spending has consistently climbed in that same period, it added. Meanwhile, welfare reform ending six decades of unconditional cash minimums occurred under President Bill Clinton’s watch.
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