ICYMI: At Finance Subcommittee Hearing, Senator Warren Pushes Back On Republican Efforts to Weaponize Work Requirements for Child Tax Credit, Medicaid, Critical Assistance Programs
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"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, too many young families walk a tightrope to make ends meet and that is why Congress established the Child Tax Credit, to try to help families pay for essentials like diapers and daycare.
During the pandemic, Democrats increased the value of the CTC and expanded access to more low-income families. The result was one of the most effective anti-poverty programs ever. A record 3 million children lifted out of poverty. Child poverty slashed nearly in half within the space of a single year.
But Congressional Republicans continue to insist on what they call "work requirements" for the CTC and other critical programs. I call these "unworkable requirements" -- this is an old trick of using a maze of red tape to try to deny families the help they need while not actually promoting employment.
Now, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, you're the director of the Center for Law and Social Policy and an expert on poverty.
So, tell me, have work requirements -- when applied to the CTC, or Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF and whenever they've been applied -- actually helped families find good jobs and escape poverty?
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So say that again. So, they put work requirements in place. And the consequence was not to boost the number of people who were working, at all. But you did lower the rolls of people who got the benefits that they were legally qualified for. And you said, what portion lost their benefits?
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One-in-four. So, all of this red tape has not helped people find work. But it has cost millions of people the help that they need, and wasted the time of millions more. And it's not just families that get buried under this mountain of paperwork. The government actually has to administer it, and that's not free.
So, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, in addition to costing families their benefits, what do work requirements cost the government?
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Okay, so work requirements don't actually promote work, but they do cost millions of Americans their benefits, and cost the government hundreds millions of dollars to administer.
But there is one group that actually profits from these work requirements. Obviously not the government's, obviously not the people who need the help. But instead, it's the for-profit contractors who are hired to administer it. Maximus, for example, has contracts in more than half of the states to administer eligibility rules for Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF, and they have raked in billions of dollars shoving families off their benefits when they can't run through the maze.
So. Mr. Dutta-Gupta, in your opinion, do work requirements help anyone besides the private contractors that get paid to administer them?
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I agree with you. We need to stay focused on policies that actually help struggling families and invest in our economy. And that means restoring an expanded Child Tax Credit and opposing Republican efforts to try to tear another hole in America's safety net and use a maze of red tape that has been proven a failure every time it's been tried. Families need us to get this right. So I hope we can get this done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. "
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