The Council of Economic Advisers

July 2018

September 29, 2017

Expanding Work Requirements in 

Non-Cash Welfare Programs
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 1

Executive Summary

July 2018

The American work ethic, the motivation that drives Americans to work longer hours each week 

and more weeks each year than any of our economic peers, is a long-standing contributor to 

America’s success. However, while working Americans spend more time working than our 

peers in comparable economies, the share of working-age Americans participating in the labor 

force has fallen behind the share in peer countries over the last several years. Today, many 

non-disabled working-age adults do not regularly work, particularly those living in low-income 

households. Such non-working adults may miss important pecuniary and non-pecuniary 

benefits for themselves and their households, and can become reliant on welfare programs.

Aiming to transition more non-disabled working-age Americans into the workforce, President 

Trump signed an executive order in April 2018 instructing agencies to reform their welfare 

programs by encouraging work and reducing dependence, in part by strengthening and 

expanding work requirements (to the extent current law allows). This effort builds on previous 

bipartisan commitments to require and reward work in welfare programs. In the 1990s, 

President Clinton promised to advance welfare reforms that would transition those expected 

to work into the workforce. Bipartisan legislation during his presidency reformed the main 

cash-based welfare program for low-income households—Aid to Families with Dependent 

Children (AFDC)—in part by imposing strong work requirements on non-disabled working-age

adults in its work-focused replacement, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). 

Though work requirements have been an important component in promoting employment for

TANF recipients, today most recipients of non-cash welfare programs are not subject to work 

requirements, despite the fact that these non-cash programs now provide the vast majority of 

welfare assistance to low-income individuals and households.

In this report, we document the share of adult recipients in the three major non-cash welfare 

programs who society generally expects to work: non-disabled working-age adults (between 

18 and 64). Figure 1 (horizontal axis) shows that non-disabled working-age adults made up the 

majority of adult recipients on Medicaid (61 percent), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 

Program (SNAP) (67 percent), and rental housing assistance programs (59 percent) as of 

December 2013, based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

Figure 1 (vertical axis) shows that the majority ofthese adult recipients worked few if any hours 

each week while receiving benefits: 60 percent of Medicaid, 60 percent of SNAP, and 52 percent 

of housing-assisted non-disabled working-age recipients worked fewer than 20 hours per 

week. These low employment rates of non-disabled working-age recipients suggest that 

legislative changes requiring them to work and supporting their transition into the labor 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 2

market, similar to the approach in TANF, would affect a large share of adult beneficiaries and 

their children in these non-cash programs.

We discuss three reasons for expanding work requirements in non-cash welfare programs as a 

means of solving the problem illustrated in Figure 1—the large number of non-disabled 

working-age recipients on non-cash welfare programs who work few, if any, hours. First, selfsufficiency has been declining in recent decades while material hardship has fallen, motivating 

a renewed focus on building self-sufficiency via work requirements. Second, an alternative 

solution of increasing positive incentives for work (for example, by increasing the Earned 

Income Tax Credit) could exacerbate already-high implicit taxes on low-skill part-time workers. 

Third, evidence suggests that welfare programs that require work in return for benefits 

increase adult employment and may improve children’s outcomes.

The timing is ideal for expanding work requirements among non-disabled working-age adults

in social welfare programs. As was the case in the period of welfare reform in the mid-1990s, 

current labor markets are extremely tight and unemployment rates are at very low levels,even 

for low-skilled workers. Still, even if work requirements improve outcomes for the majority of 

affected recipients, some may experience negative effects, which is why it is important to

0

20

40

60

80

100

Disabled or aged 40+ hours 20-39 hours 1-19 hours 0 hours

Medicaid SNAP Housing

Figure 1. Percent of Adult Recipients who are Non-Disabled 

and Working-Age and Weekly Hours Worked, December 2013

Nondisabled adult work rate

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; CEA calculations.

Note: We identify program recipients based on receipt of benefits during December 2013. “Adult” refers to all individuals 

age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” 

refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability 

Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). We base hours of work on the average hours per week each individual reported 

during December 2013. SNAP refers to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Housing refers to households who 

indicate receipt of rental subsidies.

Percent of adult program recipients

Disabled or aged

Disabled or aged

Disabled or aged
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 3

design requirements carefully and to support recipients overcoming barriers to employment

(e.g., lack of access to childcare, mental illness, or criminal records). Ultimately, expanded 

work requirements can improve the lives of current welfare recipients and at the same time 

respect the importance and dignity of work.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 4

1. Introduction

Social insurance programs protect workers and their households from a loss of labor income 

due to unemployment (Unemployment Insurance); old age, death, or disability (Old Age, 

Survivor and Disability Insurance); and sickness (Medicare). Workers earn eligibility for these 

programs based on the payroll taxes they and their employers pay into the Social Security 

System. These programs are the primary source of government-provided social protection for 

working Americans.

The United States does not provide a guaranteed minimum income without work 

requirements to all of its citizens. Instead, its social welfare programs are categorical, providing 

cash and non-cash assistance to some but not all people living in low-income households. 

Supplemental Security Income (SSI), passed into law in 1972, provided a guaranteed minimum 

income to those whom our society did not necessarily expect to work: individuals age 65 and

older; the blind; people with disabilities; and subgroups of the population that already were 

targets of State-based assistance programs.1 Prior to SSI’s implementation in 1974, the only 

other group guaranteed a minimum income was single mothers. The Aid to Families with 

Dependent Children (AFDC) program dates back to the Social Security Act of 1935. It provided 

a guaranteed minimum income to single women with children in their care in an era in which 

few women worked outside the home. These cash-income programs, together with 1960s era 

non-cash categorical programs (food stamps, Medicaid, etc.), comprised the social safety net 

for low-income households. 

As women’s role in the workforce grew, so too did social expectations of work for single 

mothers on welfare. Hence, social welfare reforms in the 1990s transformed the guaranteed 

minimum income AFDC program into Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and 

expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on each dollar earned in the labor market. 

These cash welfare programs are designed with the expectation that their non-disabled 

working-agefemale beneficiaries should work, and that the programs should incentivize them 

to do so.

2

However, non-cash welfare programs still generally lack work requirements, and those 

requirements that exist are far less demanding than TANF requirements.

3 Welfare reform in the 

 

1 See Burke and Burke (1974) for a discussion of the rejection by a Democrat controlled Congress of President 

Nixon’s universal minimum income program proposal and the creation of SSI in its stead, as well as Daly and 

Burkhauser (2003) and Duggan, Kearney and Rennane (2016) for discussions of SSI’s subsequent growth.

2 One exception is the Supplemental Security Income program for disabled children, which provides cash 

assistance to households that may include non-disabled working-age adults who are not required to work.

3 See Moffitt (2003, 2016) for two edited volumes published more than a decade apart that contain evaluative 

literature reviews of all the cash and non-cash social welfare programs discussed in this report.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 5

1990s imposed significant work requirements on non-disabled working-age adults without 

children receiving food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 

(SNAP). However, Medicaid (medical insurance for low-income individuals and families) and 

Federal housing assistance programs lack significant work requirements, as does SNAP for 

adults with children. The number of recipients of non-cash benefits has increased dramatically 

since 2000, and now includes a substantial number of non-disabled working-age beneficiaries. 

These non-cash programs create the same work incentive problems created by cash welfare 

programs. Because benefits must eventually be phased out as income rises, at some threshold 

such transfer programs impose an implicit tax on work. The effective marginal tax rates in these 

welfare programs can be substantial, especially for recipients of multiple programs. As a result, 

non-cash welfare programs can discourage work and reduce self-sufficiency.

Program work requirements, which require recipients to work or engage in work-related 

activities in order to maintain benefits, can help overcome these problems. In this report, we 

show how a legislative change expanding work requirement coverage in these non-cash 

programs to levels approaching those for individuals in TANF would affect the majority of 

beneficiaries (adults and their children) in these programs.

4 The relatively low work rates of 

non-disabled working-age adults on these programs suggests that they would need to increase 

their participation in the workforce substantially to maintain full benefits. However, the impact 

of expanding work requirement coverage heavily depends on which segments of the nondisabled working-age population will still be exempt from work requirements. Based on our 

analysis, we show that the most important criterion in this regard is the age of a parent’s 

youngest child. For example, between 19 and 24 percent of each program’s total recipients live 

in a household in which the youngest child is between 6 and 17, and between 22 and 28 percent 

of each program’s recipients live in a household in which the youngest child is between 1 and 

5. Of course, who should ultimately be covered by any work requirement (and other decisions 

such as sanctions faced for noncompliance) depends on the goals of each program and 

individual barriers to employment. For example, TANF work requirements exempt single 

parents with children under 6 who do not have access to childcare.

After documenting that expanding work requirement coverage would affect a large number of 

recipients, the remaining sections of this report provide three reasons for why doing so would 

be a beneficial way to increase work participation among non-disabled working-age adults 

receiving assistance from non-cash welfare programs:

 

4 While only non-disabled working-age recipients are subject to work requirements in our simulations, the 

consequences of work requirements, both positive and negative, would extend to their children as well (either 

because increased parental employment increases household resources or because loss of benefits from parental 

failure to comply with requirements decreases household resources).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 6

 The safety net—including government tax and (both cash and non-cash) transfer

policies—has contributed to a dramatic reduction in poverty (correctly measured) in 

the United States. However, the policies have been accompanied by a decline in selfsufficiency (in terms of receipt of welfare benefits) among non-disabled working-age

adults. Expanding work requirements in these non-cash welfare programs would 

improve self-sufficiency, with little risk of substantially reversing progress in addressing 

material hardship. 

 Unlike other options for incentivizing employment, expanding work requirement 

coverage in non-cash welfare programs to a broader set of recipients would strengthen 

incentives to enter employment without adding disincentives to increasing hours of 

work at higher earnings levels. We document that past welfare reforms have lowered 

the implicit marginal tax rates—the fraction of a dollar of additional wage earnings 

forgone after accounting for taxes and lost welfare benefits—for welfare recipients who 

do not work at all, but made them potentially quite high for recipients who work more 

than part-time. Further expansion of positive incentives to work for nonworking 

individuals, such as through increasing the EITC, could exacerbate the high implicit tax 

rates faced by low-wage part-time workers. Thus, expanding work requirement 

coverage is likely to be a more effective approach for inducing labor market 

participation among welfare recipients who society expects to work.

 The evidence regarding welfare programs suggests that work requirements can 

improve outcomes for recipients. Work-conditioned welfare programs such as the EITC

increase adult employment, reduce dependency, and improve child outcomes. 

Programs without work requirements tend to decrease adult employment, with less 

robust evidence of improved child outcomes. The most relevant historical corollary—

welfare reform in the 1990s—provides evidence that applying work requirements to 

existing welfare programs can increase employment and reduce dependency, and may

improve child wellbeing.

2. Who Would be Affected by Expanding Work Requirement 

Coverage in Non-Cash Welfare Programs

Among non-disabled working-age adults who do not receive assistance from Medicaid, SNAP 

or housing assistance programs, the vast majority (77 percent) work, and most (57 percent) do 

so full-time (Table 1), based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation

(SIPP) as of December 2013. Table 1 further disaggregates work rates by categories of 

recipients based on their own age and the presence of children in their household. Among 

adults without children, 77 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 49 work, and 75 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 7

percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64 work. Among adults with children, 79 percent 

of those whose youngest child is between 6 and 17 work, 78 percent of those whose youngest 

child is between 1 and 5 work, and 74 percent of those whose youngest child is under 1 work. 

In each category, at least 55 percent work full-time (final column of Table 1).

Table 1. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age Adults Not Receiving 

Medicaid, SNAP or Housing Assistance, Working Various Weekly Average

Hours during December 2013, by Category

Recipients

Weekly hours of work

Percent of row group

Number

(Millions)

Share of 

Column 

Total 0 < 20 < 30 < 40

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 52.9 34% 23% 28% 34% 45%

 Age 50-64 41.0 26% 25% 29% 34% 43%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 36.4 23% 21% 26% 32% 41%

 Youngest child age 1-5 22.0 14% 22% 27% 32% 41%

 Youngest child age under 1 5.5 3% 26% 29% 33% 42%

All non-disabled working-age adults 157.8 100% 23% 28% 33% 43%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; CEA calculations.

Note: We include all adults who do not receive Medicaid, SNAP or housing assistance as of December 2013, regardless of whether 

anyone else in their household receives these benefits. “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to 

individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability 

benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). “With children” refers 

to adults who live in households with at least one child under the age of 18; “without children” refers to adults who live in 

households without any children under the age of 18. We base hours of work on the average hours per week each individual 

reported during December 2013.

The high workforce participation and weekly work hours of non-disabled working-age adults 

who do not receive benefits from Medicaid, SNAP or housing assistance stands in stark contrast 

to Figure 1, which showed that the majority of non-disabled working-age recipients of each of 

these programs works fewer than 20 hours per week. Of course, the lower work rates by these 

welfare recipients are by construction; individuals who work have greater earnings and are less 

likely to qualify for benefits. However, the work hours demonstrated in each category in Table 

1 indicates that the vast majority of the almost 158 million non-disabled working-age adults

not receiving benefits from these non-cash welfare programs, independent of age or the 

presence of children, can and do work. Expecting significant workforce participation from nondisabled working-age recipients of these three types of non-cash assistance is consistent with 

these norms.

This section proceeds by documenting the current state of work requirements in Medicaid, 

SNAP and housing assistance programs, which we note are much weaker and less expansive

than those in TANF. We then estimate how many recipients would be affected by expanding 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 8

work requirement coverage to additional non-disabled working-age recipients in these noncash programs. We separately consider the categories of recipients shown in Table 1, based on 

the age of adult recipients and the presence and age of children in the household. In doing so, 

we assume these increases in coverage would also affect children in the households of these 

non-disabled working-age adults, either due to increased parental employment and 

household income, or due to reductions in material benefits due to failure to comply.5

We find that the share of recipients in each program potentially affected by requiring nondisabled working-age adults to work or participate in work-related activities will greatly 

depend on the “age-of-youngest-child exemption.” Currently in TANF, the vast majority of 

State programs only exempt single parents from work requirements if they have a child under 

the age of 1 (or in some States even younger). We find that large shares (between 22 and 28 

percent) of total recipients of Medicaid, SNAP and housing assistance programs live in 

households in which the youngest child is between 1 and 5, and similarly large shares (between 

19 and 24 percent) of total recipients live in households in which the youngest child is between 

6 and 17. We also show that adults with children between the ages of 1 and 5 on these programs 

are disproportionately younger adults, for whom work may be especially important in building 

and maintaining valuable skills.

Whether non-disabled working-age recipients subject to expanded work requirements would 

actually be affected depends on whether they already work while receiving benefits. We 

document that over 50 percent of non-disabled working-age recipients of Medicaid and SNAP

(and 45 percent of those on housing assistance) do not work during the month of benefit 

receipt, while even larger shares work fewer than 20 or 30 hours per week, the current work 

standards in TANF for non-exempt single parents. Within this population, non-disabled 

working-age adults without children are less likely to work than are those with children.

Ultimately, expanding the coverage of work requirements in these non-cash welfare programs 

to resemble those currently in place in TANF would affect the majority of recipients, and could 

potentially move a large fraction of non-disabled working-age adults on these programs into 

employment, especially if barriers to work such as lack of childcare, mental illness or criminal 

records are addressed.

 

5 While disabled working-age and older-aged individuals living in households with working-age adults subject to 

work requirements may be affected as well, the extent to which these household members share resources with 

non-disabled working-age adults is less clear. Thus, we only assume that children in these households are 

affected.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 9

A. Summary of work requirements in safety net programs

In 2016, just under $704 billion was spent by the Federal and State governments on Medicaid, 

SNAP, housing assistance programs (including Section 8 housing vouchers, project-based 

0

5

10

15

20

25

1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017

Medicaid SNAP Housing AFDC/TANF

Figure 2a. Percent of U.S. Population Enrolled in Each of 

Four Major Welfare Programs, 1969–2017

Percent

0

1

2

3

1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017

Medicaid SNAP Housing AFDC/TANF

Figure 2b. Percent of U.S. Population Enrolled in Each of 

Four Major Welfare Programs, 1969–2017, Indexed to 1979

Index (1979 = 1)

Sources: Truffer et al. (2012); Truffer et al. (2016); CMS (2018b); USDA (2018a); Crouse et al. (2001); HHS (2018a); 

Collinson et al. (2015); HUD (2018); National Bureau of Economic Research; CEA calculations.

Note: For Medicaid, SNAP, and AFDC/TANF, shares are the number of individual recipients divided by U.S. population 

in each year. For housing assistance, shares are the number of assisted households divided by total U.S. households, 

as we are unaware of administrative data tracking individual recipients of housing assistance throughout this entire 

period. TANF recipients include those receiving assistance from separate State programs. Grey shaded regions denote 

a recession for at least four months of a given year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 10

housing and public housing) and TANF.6 Figure 2a, which is based on administrative records, 

shows the growth in enrollment in each program as a percent of the total U.S. population over 

time. 

While welfare program enrollment is somewhat sensitive to peaks and troughs within business 

cycles—see National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recession years in gray—there has 

also been substantial secular change across business cycles. Between 1969 and 2017, the share 

of the population covered by Medicaid grew from 6 percent to 22 percent, and the share 

covered by SNAP (and its predecessor, Food Stamps) grew from 1 percent to 13 percent. 

Housing assistance programs and TANF currently cover a much smaller share of the 

population, with the share receiving housing assistance showing a net increase over this period 

and the share receiving TANF (and its predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children) 

decreasing. Unlike Medicaid and SNAP, which provide benefits to all who qualify, the number 

of recipients of housing assistance and TANF is constrained by the level of funding available, 

and so not all eligible households receive assistance.

Figure 2b shows how the percent of the population receiving benefits from each of the four 

programs has changed relative to 1979 (chosen based on a number of changes that occurred 

in the food stamp program until 1979)7: In 2017, the percent of the population receiving 

Medicaid, SNAP and housing assistance was 2.5, 1.7 and 1.3 times as high, respectively. 

Meanwhile, the percent of the population receiving TANF was only 0.24 times as high (partly a 

result of substitution of funds for activities besides basic assistance as well as the declining real 

value of the TANF block grant). Thus, Medicaid and SNAP are the two largest programs and the 

programs that have experienced the most growth since 1979.

Table 2 summarizes each of these four programs in terms of combined Federal and State 

spending, the number of recipients served, and their work requirements. Medicaid is the 

dominant program in terms of funding ($566 billion) and beneficiaries (71 million people). 

Aside from a provision that allows States to terminate Medicaid eligibility for certain 

individuals who fail to comply with the TANF work requirement, Title XIX of the Social Security 

Act does not include any mandatory work requirements. Some states, however, are beginning 

to test programs that incentivize beneficiaries to engage in work and other forms of community 

engagement. SNAP is the second largest program covering just over 44 million recipients in 

 

6 See Table 2, discussed in further detail when comparing work requirement coverage across programs. Also, note 

that in our analysis, including Figure 2, we exclude the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which provides tax credits 

to developers in return for renting to lower income households at below market rents. We exclude these recipients 

because the surveys we analyze do not identify them.

7 This is also the first year in which the Current Population Survey–Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPSASEC) asked respondents about receipt of food stamps. Analysis based on the CPS-ASEC is included in Section 3 

and similarly indexed to 1979 in some cases. 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 11

2016 at a cost of $71 billion. It has significant work requirements for non-disabled working-age 

adults under the age of 50 without dependent children—although States frequently waive even 

these requirements based on geographic exemptions (for example, based on a local 

unemployment rate that exceeds 20 percent of the national average)—but not for non-disabled 

adults with dependent children. Housing assistance programs, which cover under 10 million 

people, do not in general enforce work requirements (although certain public housing 

authorities can implement them as part of demonstration projects).

Table 2. Spending, Recipients and Work Requirements in Medicaid, SNAP, 

Housing Assistance and TANF, 2016

Program

Spending

(billions)

Recipients 

(millions)

Work requirements for non-disabled workingage adults

Medicaid8 $565.5 70.9 None (except with respect to community 

engagement demonstration programs)

Supplemental Nutrition 

Assistance Program 

(SNAP)

$70.9 44.2 Age 18-49, no child:

 80 hours/month

Age 16-59, youngest child at least 6:

 Must accept job offers

Housing assistance 

(Section 8 housing 

vouchers, Section 8 

project-based 

assistance, and public 

housing)

$36.6 9.5 Public housing residents, no child:

 No work requirements, but 8 hours/month of 

 community service or participation in 

 economic self-sufficiency programs if not 

 otherwise working

Moving to Work demonstration program

 Some participating housing authorities 

 voluntarily institute work requirements

Temporary Assistance 

for Needy Families 

(TANF)

$30.9

($7.1 on basic 

assistance)

3.9 Single parent with youngest child under 1:

 Exempt in many States

Single parent with youngest child under 6:

 20 hours per week

Single parent with youngest child at least 6:

 30 hours per week

Two parents with no subsidized child care:

 35 hours per week (combined)

Two parents with subsidized child care

 55 hours per week (combined)

Total $703.9 N/A

Sources: CMS (2018b); USDA (2018a); HUD (2018); Congressional Research Service (2017); HHS (2017a); HHS (2017b); CEA 

calculations.

Note: Spending includes Federal and State spending. Recipients are average monthly, with the exception of housing assistance,

which is total annual. Housing assistance spending includes spending on Section 8 housing vouchers, Section 8 project-based 

assistance, the public housing capital fund, and the public housing operating fund. TANF spending and recipients include those 

receiving assistance from separate state programs. TANF basic assistance funding excludes Relative Foster Care Maintenance 

Payments and Adoption and Guardianship Subsidies. TANF recipients are those receiving basic assistance. Because individuals can 

receive benefits from multiple programs simultaneously, we are unable to determine the total number of people receiving benefits 

from at least one of the included programs based on the administrative data sources used here.

 

8 42 U.S.C. 1396u-1(b)(3) allows States to terminate medical assistance under Medicaid to certain individuals for 

failure to comply with the TANF work requirement.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 12

TANF has the most expansive work requirements in terms of populations covered. Although 

specific provisions vary across States, all non-disabled working-age adults are potentially 

subject to work requirements, generally with the exception of single parents with infants and 

several other exceptions. For example, only California and Vermont exempt single parents with 

children under the age of 2 from work requirements, 23 States only exempt single parents with 

children under the age of 1, 11 States only exempt single parents with a child between the ages 

of 1 month and 11 months, and 9 States have no such exemption (Urban Institute 2018). Single 

parents with a child under 6 are required to work or engage in work activities for at least 20 

hours per week, assuming that childcare (not necessarily subsidized) is available. Single 

parents with no child under 6 must work at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families must 

work a combined 35 hours per week and those with federally subsidized childcare must work 

a combined 55 hours per week. States retain significant discretion in defining the sanctions for 

violating requirements and determining recipients to exempt based on hardship or other 

factors. States must meet a federal Work Participation Rate, which requires a portion of the 

caseload to participate in work or allowable work activities for the amount of hours listed in 

Table 2 (statute requires a 50 percent work participation rate, but various credits allow states 

to lower that target).

The replacement of AFDC (which generally lacked work requirements) with TANF in 1996 and 

welfare reform in the 1990s more broadly serves as a useful model for expanding the coverage 

of work requirements in non-cash welfare programs. Between 1996 and 2000, TANF receipt by 

single mothers fell by 53 percent, their employment rate increased by 10 percent, and their 

poverty rate fell by 20 percent (see Section 5). While a number of factors can explain these 

trends, including the growing generosity of the EITC and a growing economy, the 

preponderance of the research suggests that welfare reform played an important role as well 

(See Ziliak 2016 for a review of this literature). Additionally, contrary to the view held by some 

that welfare reform increased extreme poverty, research based on how much households 

actually consume has found that the material wellbeing of single mother families increased (or 

at least did not decrease) across the distribution, even for those in the bottom decile of 

consumption (Meyer and Sullivan 2008).9While careful design of work requirements is essential 

to their success, the experience with TANF and welfare reform in general suggests that work 

requirements could have important benefits for recipients of non-cash programs as well. 

In the following subsections, we usesurvey data to estimatethe number of adults and children 

enrolled in Medicaid, SNAP and housing assistance programs who would potentially be 

affected by work requirement rules closer to those currently in place in TANF. In addition, we 

estimate the current work rates of non-disabled working-age adults during a given month of 

benefit receipt. We separately analyze five distinct groups of non-disabled working-age

 

9 Section 5 discusses the evidence on welfare reform in more depth.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 13

recipients: (i) childless adults between 18 and 49, (ii) childless adults between 50 and 64, (iii) 

adults with a youngest child between 6 and 17, (iv) adults with a youngest child between 1 and 

5, and (v) adults with a youngest child under 1. We disaggregate beneficiaries in this way 

because work requirements in the SNAP and TANF programs apply to these groups in different 

ways. This allows us to determine how many recipients would be affected in each non-cash 

program by expanding work requirement coverage to progressively broader segments of nondisabled working-age adults. In order to obtain estimates of the number of recipients in each 

of these categories, we apply the shares of recipients in each category based on survey data to 

the total number of recipients identified in administrative data during the survey year.10

Our analysis of groups that would be affected in each program and their work rates is based on 

the SIPP. This survey uniquely allows for direct observation of whether each respondent 

receives benefits from each welfare program and his or her work hours for any given month. 

This contrasts with the Current Population Survey–Annual Social and Economic Supplement

(CPS–ASEC), for example, which only reports welfare receipt at some point during the previous 

year, making it impossible to know whether each respondent worked during the months of 

benefit receipt.11 In addition, the SIPP suffers from less underreporting of welfare benefits than

other surveys (Meyer et al. 2015). A limitation of the SIPP, however, is that the most recent 

available data is for each month of 2013. This survey year occurred during a period of weaker 

economic performance than today, and it predates the expansion of Medicaid in many States 

in January 2014 to previously ineligible populations.

However, we show in the appendix that using 2013 as our survey year is unlikely to 

substantively change our results for at least one of the programs discussed. Specifically, we 

first show that SIPP-based estimates of the distribution of non-disabled working-age SNAP 

recipients over each category and their work rates are similar to those from a 2013 survey of 

SNAP recipients conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Second, we use the 

USDA survey from 2013 to 2016 to show that the percent of adult SNAP recipients who are nondisabled and working-age has decreased by only 2 percentage points, and that the percent of 

these non-disabled working-age SNAP recipients who do not work has decreased by only 3 

percentage points. Thus, it is likely that SIPP-based estimates would not have markedly 

changed between 2013 and 2016 either, at least for SNAP but potentially for recipients of other 

 

10 We do not rely directly on administrative data for these estimates in order to retain consistent categories and 

definitions of disability for each program.

11 Note, however, that the HHS-TRIM-III model allows for imputation (but not direct observation) of monthly 

benefit receipt and work hours for any given month. Other studies, such as Garfield et al. (2017), do not use 

imputed monthly benefits; rather, they define welfare receipt and work status based on whether an individual 

ever received welfare or ever worked at any point during the year. This approach can lead to mischaracterizations 

about the work behavior of welfare recipients during receipt of benefits (see for example, New York Times 2018).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 14

programs as well (with the exception of individuals receiving Medicaid because of State-level 

expansions in 2014).

12

B. Medicaid

Medicaid is the largest non-cash welfare program. Federal and State governments jointly fund 

Medicaid, which provides health insurance to over 70 million Americans. Medicaid is a meanstested program, with States retaining discretion in determining specific eligibility rules beyond 

the Federal minimum requirements. A major change to eligibility rules occurred in 2010 with 

the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It provided Federal funding for States to expand 

Medicaid eligibility to adults in households with incomes of up to 138 percent of the Federal 

poverty line beginning in 2014 (with the Federal contribution for expanded populations 

beginning at 100 percent and phasing down to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond). A Supreme 

Court decision in 2012 made this expansion optional for States. As of June 2018, 34 States and 

the District of Columbia have chosen this option (Kaiser Family Foundation 2018). The ACA also 

introduced tax credits for individuals with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty 

line (just under $49,000 for a single adult and just over $100,000 for a family of 4 based on 2018 

thresholds) who do not qualify for Medicaid and instead obtain health insurance via the ACA 

Exchanges. (See Buchmueller et al. 2016 for an evaluative literature review of the Medicaid 

program).

Unlike the other programs we consider, Medicaid benefits do not gradually phase out as 

income rises—recipients retain full benefits as long as their income remains at or below the 

maximum income threshold. However, passing that threshold eliminates all benefits. This 

“benefit cliff” creates a strong disincentive to work for households with incomes near the 

threshold, as increasing one’s earnings slightly can result in complete loss of health insurance. 

The introduction of ACA tax credits in part alleviates the problem of a benefit cliff, since those 

losing Medicaid receive refundable tax credits that they can apply to the cost of health 

insurance purchased on the exchanges. However, the tax credits also discourage work higher 

in the income distribution, affecting many more households, since these tax credits phase out 

gradually as income rises.

Title XIX of the Social Security Act generally does not impose work requirements as a condition 

of Medicaid benefit eligibility. However, several States have sought to incorporate work 

 

12 Though not comparable to our SIPP-based estimates, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 

publishes an annual “Picture of Subsidized Households,” which reports the percent of households for which more 

than half of household income accrues through wages or business income. For example, in 2013, 27 percent of 

Section 8 voucher recipient households and 28 percent of public housing recipient households had over half their 

income come from wages or business income, compared with 31 percent and 30 percent respectively, as of 2017 

(HUD 2018).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 15

incentives into their Medicaid programs, and more recently, several States have sought 

permission to condition Medicaid eligibility on participation in community engagement 

activities, including work. In response to state interest, on January 11, 2018, the Centers for 

Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it would consider approving 

demonstration projects by States that proposed to implement community engagement 

requirements for non-pregnant, non-disabled working age adults (CMS 2018c). CMS intends to 

evaluate whether incentivizing work and other forms of community engagement improves 

health outcomes and facilitates upward mobility out of poverty and towards independence. 

States can design their own community engagement requirement definitions, which can 

include activities such as paid employment, job training, community service, education, and 

drug treatment. CMS has accepted demonstration projects submitted by four States (Arkansas, 

Indiana, Kentucky, and New Hampshire), while applications from seven other States (Arizona, 

Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Utah, Ohio and Wisconsin) are pending (Garfield et al. 2018). The 

eleven States with accepted waivers or with waiver applications pending serve a combined 16

percent of the total Medicaid caseload (CMS 2018a). Thus, in combination with the fact that 

community engagement requirements only affect specific subpopulations of recipients in each 

State, these waivers are currently set to affect only a small fraction of Medicaid recipients.

However, a June 2018 U.S. District Court ruling (Stewart et al. v. Azar et al. 2018) vacated HHS 

approval of the State of Kentucky’s demonstration project and “remand[ed] the matter to HHS 

for further review.”

In Table 3, we estimate how many Medicaid recipients would potentially be affected by 

applying work requirements to all non-disabled working-age adults in the program.13 We use 

data from the most recent wave of the SIPP, which surveyed respondents about their use of 

various welfare programs in each month of 2013. It is important to note that these data predate 

expansion of Medicaid to new adults as of January 2014, and thus, will underestimate the 

number of people potentially affected by work requirements. We categorize each adult 

Medicaid recipient based on his or her own age and disability status (based on receipt of 

disability benefits), as well as the presence of any children. The first column of Table 3 indicates 

the number of adult recipients in each category in December 2013. For example, there were an 

estimated 4.0 million non-disabled adult recipients between the ages of 18 and 49 without 

children, and another 1.8 million non-disabled adult recipients between the ages of 50 and 64 

without children. Among non-disabled adults with children, there were 5.0 million whose 

youngest child was between 6 and 17, another 5.0 million whose youngest child was between 

1 and 5, and 1.5 million whose youngest child was under 1. There were 10.8 million other 

adults—those who are either aged (65 or older) or disabled (receiving disability benefits). Thus, 

 

13 We do not separately analyze pregnant women, whose unborn children may require public health insurance 

even when mothers fail to comply with work requirements. How policies would treat these cases is beyond the 

scope of this report.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 16

applying work requirements to all non-disabled working-age adults would subject 17.2 million 

of 28.0 million adult Medicaid recipients to that coverage. The majority of those would be nondisabled adults with children.

Table 3. Number of Adult, Child, and Total Medicaid Recipients, by Category, 

December 2013

Category

Adult recipients 

(millions)

Child 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(percent)

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 4.0 4.0 7%

 Age 50-64 1.8 1.8 3%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 5.0 6.4 11.4 19%

 Youngest child age 1-5 5.0 7.9 12.9 22%

 Youngest child age under 1 1.5 2.5 4.0 7%

Other 10.8 15.0 25.8 43%

Total 28.0 31.8 59.8 100%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; Truffer at al. (2016); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify Medicaid recipients based on receipt of Medicaid coverage during December 2013. “Adult” refers to all individuals 

age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all 

adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans 

disability benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child under the age of 18 who receives 

Medicaid coverage; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children under the age of 18 who receive 

Medicaid coverage. If a child Medicaid recipient lives with at least one non-disabled working-age adult who receives Medicaid, we 

assign the child to a category based on the age of the youngest child in their household (not necessarily the child’s own age). 

“Other” includes all disabled or aged adults who receive Medicaid coverage, and any Medicaid recipient children who live in a

household with no non-disabled working-age adult recipients. In order to estimate the number of recipients in each category, we 

multiply the share of Medicaid recipients we identify using the SIPP (as of December 2013) by the monthly administrative caseload 

we identify using Truffer et al. (2016) values for 2013.

Implementing work requirements in this way for adults would affect children as well. Work 

requirements could increase adult employment and household resources, or failure of adults 

to comply with those requirements could result in the loss of Medicaid coverage and lead 

adults to spend additional household resources on personal health services. The second 

column of Table 3 estimates the number of child recipients who live in the households of the 

adults shown in the first column. An estimated 6.4 million children live in a household in which 

the youngest child is between 6 and 17, 7.9 million children live in a household in which the 

youngest child is between 1 and 5, and 2.5 million children live in a household in which the 

youngest child is under 1. Note that each child is not necessarily categorized based on his or 

her own age, but rather, based on the age of the youngest child in the household. For example, 

a 10-year old child with an infant sibling lives in a household in which the youngest child is 

under 1. This exercise also abstracts from differential treatment of two-parent households in 

which only one parent may be exempt. The final row indicates the number of children in 

households without a non-disabled working-age Medicaid recipient. These children may live 

with only disabled or older-adult Medicaid recipients, or they may live with no adults who 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 17

receive Medicaid. Work requirements on non-disabled working-age adults would not affect 

these children.

The final two columns of Table 3 estimate the total number of Medicaid recipients in each 

group (the sum of adults and children) as well as the percent of recipients. Altogether, 

application of work requirements to all non-disabled working-age adults would cover 57 

percent (34.0 million) of all Medicaid recipients. In contrast, if work requirements were only 

applied to non-disabled working-age adults without children, they would affect only 10 

percent of all recipients. Applying work requirements to non-disabled working-age adults 

whose youngest child is at least 6 would affect another 19 percent of total recipients, and 

applying requirements to those whose youngest child is at least 1 would affect another 22 

percent of total recipients. Further extending coverage to non-disabled working-age adults 

whose youngest child is under 1 would only affect an additional 7 percent. Thus, the impact of 

applying work requirement coverage in the Medicaid program depends heavily on whether 

such requirements are applied to adults with children, and especially, whether they apply to 

adults with a youngest child between 1 and 5.

Of course, to the extent that non-disabled working-age adults are already working at the 

prescribed level while receiving benefits, work requirements will not affect them. Table 4

shows for each category of non-disabled working-age adults, whether and how much they 

work each week while receiving Medicaid. Altogether, there were an estimated 17.2 million 

non-disabled working-age adult recipients. The majority, 53 percent, did not work any hours 

while receiving Medicaid. An estimated 60 percent worked fewer than 20 hours per week, 69 

percent worked fewer than 30 hours, and 78 percent worked fewer than 40 hours. Work 

requirements in the TANF and SNAP programs generally require either 20 or 30 hours of work 

per week. Extending similar requirements to Medicaid is likely to affect a large majority of its 

non-disabled working-age recipients and their households. 

We can also see from Table 4 the work rates of specific groups. Among Medicaid recipients, 

non-disabled working-age adults without children are somewhat less likely to work than are 

those with children. Work rates are highest for adults with a youngest child between the ages 

of 1 and 5, with a slight majority (51 percent) working. Even in this group, however, the majority 

(54 percent) work fewer than 20 hours per week. Thus, while many non-disabled working-age 

adults can and do work, most would not fulfill a 20-hour per week work requirement. This 

suggests that applying Medicaid work requirements to these groups could potentially bring a 

substantial number of recipients into the workforce or increase their hours of work. This is 

especially the case for non-disabled working-age adults with a youngest child between 6 and 

17, and those with a youngest child between 1 and 5, who each make up 29 percent (58 percent 

altogether) of all non-disabled working-age Medicaid recipients. Moreover, adults with a 

youngest child between the ages of 1 and 5 are disproportionately younger adults, for whom 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 18

continued experience in the workforce can build skills and increase the likelihood of continued 

employment in the future (Appendix Figure B.1 shows the distribution of Medicaid recipients 

in each of these groups by his or her own age).

Table 4. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age Medicaid Recipients Working 

Various Weekly Average Hours during Month of Assistance, by Category, 

December 2013

Recipients

Weekly hours of work

Percent of row group

Number

(Millions)

Share of 

Column 

Total 0 < 20 < 30 < 40

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 4.0 23% 55% 64% 74% 81%

 Age 50-64 1.8 10% 65% 72% 77% 83%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 5.0 29% 50% 58% 67% 76%

 Youngest child age 1-5 5.0 29% 49% 54% 63% 75%

 Youngest child age under 1 1.5 9% 57% 62% 69% 80%

All non-disabled working-age adults 17.2 100% 53% 60% 69% 78%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; Truffer at al. (2016); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify Medicaid recipients based on receipt of Medicaid coverage during December 2013. “Adult” refers to all individuals 

age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all 

adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans 

disability benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child under the age of 18 who receives 

Medicaid coverage; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children under the age of 18 who receive 

Medicaid coverage. In order to estimate the number of recipients in each category, we multiply the share of Medicaid recipients we 

identify using the SIPP (as of December 2013) by the monthly administrative caseload we identify using Truffer et al. (2016) values 

for 2013. We base hours of work on the average hours per week each individual reported during December 2013.

C. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

SNAP is the second largest non-cash welfare program. It provided food assistance to 44 million 

people at a cost of $71 billion to the Federal government in 2016. SNAP benefits are loaded 

onto Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards that function like debit cards and can be used to 

purchase food at grocery stores and some other outlets. The maximum monthly benefit for a 

family of three (one adult and two children) is currently $504. Aside from a small earnings 

disregard, each one-dollar increase in labor earnings reduces SNAP benefits by $0.24 to $0.36, 

creating a disincentive to work. SNAP rolls increased dramatically during the Great Recession, 

in part due to declining economic conditions, and in part due to policy changes resulting from 

the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (i.e., the Farm Bill), which increased asset 

limits, expanded deductions, and provided easier access to benefits. In part because of these 

policy changes, SNAP rolls remain well above their pre-Great Recession levels. The proportion 

of the U.S. population receiving SNAP in 2017 was 48 percent higher than the proportion 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 19

receiving SNAP in 2007, as can be seen in Figure 2b. (See Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2016 for 

an evaluative literature review of the SNAP program).

SNAP has Federal prescriptions for work requirements. Non-disabled adults between the ages 

of 18 and 49 with no dependents under age 18 face the strictest work requirements. They may 

receive SNAP benefits for only three months every three years unless they meet the work test—

80 hours of work (or work activities) each month. However, States can obtain waivers from this 

requirement based on economic conditions.14 For example, a State can obtain a waiver if its 

unemployment rate exceeds 10 percent, or if its unemployment rate is 20 percent higher than 

the national average. The national unemployment rate was 4.0 percent as of June 2018; a State 

unemployment rate of 4.8 percent would qualify it for an exemption. As of the third quarter of 

FY2018, eight States and territories received exemptions for their entire State, and 28 States 

and territories received exemptions for a part of their State. California, for instance, had a 

statewide exemption (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. States Fully or Partially Waving SNAP Time Limit for 

Non-Disabled Working-Age Adults without Children, 3rd Quarter 

FY2018

Source: USDA (2018b).

Other SNAP recipients face less strict work requirements. Non-disabled SNAP recipients 

between the ages of 16 and 59 face a general requirement that they must accept suitable jobs 

available to them. SNAP recipients aged 60 or over and recipients with dependent children 

 

14 During the Great Recession, these work requirements were waived for all States.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 20

under 6 are completely exempt from work requirements. While States may choose to impose 

stronger work requirements than those mandated by Federal law, few have chosen to do so.

In Table 5, we estimate the number of SNAP recipients that would be affected by work 

requirements. Of the 27.6 million adult SNAP recipients in 2013, 6.8 million are non-disabled

working-age childless adults, 11.8 million are non-disabled working-age adults with children, 

and 9.0 million are either aged or disabled. When including the children in the households of

non-disabled working-age adults, extending work rules only to those without children would 

affect 14 percent (6.8 million) of total SNAP recipients; extending them to those with children 

would affect another 60 percent (28.8 million). The largest group is the set of households with 

a youngest child between 1 and 5, who make up 28 percent (13.4 million) of all SNAP recipients.

Table 5. Number of Adult, Child and Total SNAP Recipients, by Category, 

December 2013

Category

Adult recipients 

(millions)

Child 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(percent)

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 4.3 4.3 9%

 Age 50-64 2.5 2.5 5%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 5.1 6.6 11.7 24%

 Youngest child age 1-5 5.4 8.0 13.4 28%

 Youngest child age under 1 1.3 2.3 3.7 8%

Other 9.0 3.1 12.1 25%

Total 27.6 20.0 47.6 100%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; USDA (2018a); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify SNAP recipients based on receipt of SNAP benefits during December 2013. “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or 

over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult 

individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability 

benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child under the age of 18 who receives SNAP 

benefits; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children under the age of 18 who receive SNAP 

benefits. If a child SNAP recipient lives with at least one non-disabled working-age adult who receives SNAP, the child is assigned to 

a category based on the age of the youngest child in their household (not necessarily the child’s own age). “Other” includes all 

disabled or aged adults who receive SNAP benefits, and any SNAP recipient children who live in a household with no non-disabled 

working-age adult recipients. In order to estimate the number of recipients in each category, we multiply the share of SNAP 

recipients we identify in the SIPP (as of December 2013) by the monthly administrative caseload we identify using USDA (2013a) 

values in 2013.

Table 6 estimates the work rates of the 18.6 million non-disabled working-age adults on SNAP 

who live in each household type. Overall, 54 percent do not work during a given month of 

benefit receipt, 60 percent work fewer than 20 hours per week, 70 percent work fewer than 30 

hours per week, and 81 percent work fewer than 40 hours per week. As with Medicaid, work 

rates are lower for those without children, and are highest for those with a youngest child 

between 1 and 5, though even in this group 51 percent work fewer than 20 hours per week. 

Thus, expanding significant SNAP work requirements beyond childless adults under 50 could 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 21

help encourage a large number of non-disabled working-age adults to increase their work 

effort. This is especially true of those with a youngest child between the ages of 1 and 5, who 

make up 29 percent of all non-disabled working-age SNAP recipients, and who are 

disproportionately younger adults with potentially higher returns on remaining in the 

workforce (see Appendix Figure B.2). However, the extent to which the extension of significant 

work requirement coverage would apply to these and other SNAP recipients depends largely 

on the expansiveness of geographic waivers. Under current rules, many would be exempt, 

including for instance, all SNAP recipients in the State of California.

Table 6. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age SNAP Recipients Working 

Various Weekly Average Hours during Month of Assistance, by Category, 

December 2013

Recipients

Weekly hours of work

Percent of row group

Number

(Millions)

Share of 

Column 

Total 0 < 20 < 30 < 40

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 4.3 23% 60% 67% 80% 89%

 Age 50-64 2.5 13% 68% 77% 84% 90%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 5.1 27% 48% 55% 64% 76%

 Youngest child age 1-5 5.4 29% 46% 51% 61% 75%

 Youngest child age under 1 1.3 7% 57% 62% 70% 80%

All non-disabled working-age adults 18.6 100% 54% 60% 70% 81%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; USDA (2018a); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify SNAP recipients based on receipt of SNAP benefits during December 2013. “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or 

over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult 

individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability 

benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child under the age of 18 who receives SNAP 

benefits; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children under the age of 18 who receive SNAP 

benefits. In order to estimate the number of recipients in each category, we multiply the share of SNAP recipients we identify in the 

SIPP (as of December 2013) by the monthly administrative caseload we identify using USDA (2018a) values in 2013. We base hours of 

work on each individual’s reported average hours of work per week during December 2013.

D. Housing assistance programs

Housing assistance is the third largest non-cash welfare program. The housing assistance 

programs considered in this report (Section 8 housing vouchers, Section 8 project-based 

assistance, and public housing) subsidize the rent of recipients, either in private market 

apartments or in public housing or project-based units.15 Just under 10 million people received 

housing assistance in 2016 at a Federal cost of $37 billion (Table 2). Eligibility for housing 

assistance depends on the incomes of households relative to the median income in the area, 

 

15 We are not able to capture the value of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit because SIPP does not identify 

whether recipients live in housing funded by this credit.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 22

and households with very low incomes are generally given priority, since not all households 

who are eligible receive assistance. Assisted households generally pay 30 percent of their 

adjusted income in rent for reasonably priced apartments (but often no fewer than $50 per 

month), with the government covering the remainder. As a result, for every additional dollar 

earned by a household, it loses 30 cents of its rental subsidy. (See Collinson et al. 2016 for an 

evaluative literature review of housing assistance programs). 

Table 7. Number of Adult, Child and Total Housing Assistance Recipients, by 

Category, December 2013

Category

Adult recipients 

(millions)

Child 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(millions)

Total 

recipients 

(percent)

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 1.2 1.2 12%

 Age 50-64 0.5 0.5 5%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 1.0 1.3 2.3 23%

 Youngest child age 1-5 1.0 1.3 2.3 23%

 Youngest child age under 1 0.3 0.4 0.6 6%

Other 2.8 0.3 3.1 31%

Total 6.8 3.3 10.1 100%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; HUD (2018); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify housing assistance recipients based on receipt of public housing or other rental assistance during December 2013. 

“Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 

and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security 

Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child 

under the age of 18 who receives housing assistance; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children 

under the age of 18 who receive housing assistance. If a child housing assistance recipient lives with at least one non-disabled 

working-age adult who receives housing assistance, the child is assigned to a category based on the age of the youngest child in 

their household (not necessarily the child’s own age). “Other” includes all disabled or aged adults who receive housing assistance, 

and any housing assistance recipient children who live in a household with no non-disabled working-age adult recipients. To 

estimate the number of recipients in each category, we multiply the share of housing assistance recipients we identify using the 

SIPP (as of December 2013) by the number of assisted individuals we identify by using HUD (2018) values in 2013.

While a requirement exists in the public housing program for non-disabled working-age adults 

who are not working or enrolled in a self-sufficiency program to participate in 8 hours per 

month of community engagement or other activities, it is not necessarily enforced (HUD Office 

of Inspector General 2015). However, under the Moving to Work demonstration program, 

authorized public housing authorities may experiment with stronger work requirements. Out 

of close to 3,000 public housing authorities across the United States, about one percent (39) 

are designated as Moving to Work agencies, and of those, just nine had implemented work 

requirements for some portion of recipients as of 2015 (Levy et al. 2018). Thus, work 

requirements are rare in housing assistance programs.

Table 7 provides estimates of how expanding work requirements in these housing programs 

would affect their combined 10.1 million recipients (based on 2013 values). Among the 4.0
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 23

million non-disabled working-age adults, the majority (2.3 million) have children. As a result,

expanding work requirements to childless non-disabled working-age adults would affect just 

17 percent of housing assistance recipients, but further expanding work requirements to nondisabled working-age adults with children would affect an additional 52 percent. This would 

leave the other 31 percent of recipients unaffected, somewhat more than the unaffected SNAP 

population. In addition, as with Medicaid and SNAP, households with a youngest child between 

1 and 5 constitute a large share (23 percent) of recipients.

Table 8. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age Housing Assistance 

Recipients Working Various Weekly Average Hours during Month of 

Assistance, by Category, December 2013

Recipients

Weekly hours of work

Percent of row group

Number

Share of 

Column 

Total 0 < 20 < 30 < 40

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 1.2 30% 44% 52% 62% 71%

 Age 50-64 0.5 13% 50% 56% 63% 71%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 1.0 26% 47% 54% 63% 75%

 Youngest child age 1-5 1.0 24% 43% 49% 59% 74%

 Youngest child age under 1 0.3 6% 45% 51% 58% 64%

All non-disabled working-age adults 4.0 100% 45% 52% 61% 72%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; HUD (2018); CEA calculations.

Note: We identify housing assistance recipients based on receipt of public housing or other rental assistance during December 2013. 

“Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 

and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security 

Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). “With children” refers to adults who live in households with at least one child 

under the age of 18 who receives housing assistance; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children 

under the age of 18 who receive housing assistance. To estimate the number of recipients in each category, we multiply the share of 

housing assistance recipients we identify in the SIPP (as of December 2013) by the number of assisted individuals we identify using 

HUD (2018) values in 2013. We base hours of work on each individual’s reported average hours of work per week during December

2013.

Table 8 provides estimates of the work rates among non-disabled working-age adults in these 

categories. Unlike with Medicaid and SNAP, a slight majority (55 percent) of non-disabled 

working-age recipients of housing assistance work at least some hours during the week. 

Another key difference is that work rates are similar across adults with and without children in 

the household. For the 18-49 year old childless adults, this may in part reflect a greater 

propensity for young adults to remain living in subsidized housing with their families while 

working. Although overall work rates are higher for housing assistance recipients than for those 

in other programs, a majority (52 percent) would still fail to meet a 20-hour per week work 

requirement, and 61 percent would fail to meet a 30-hour per week requirement. Thus, 

significant work requirements in housing assistance programs could still affect a large number 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 24

of recipients and potentially induce many non-disabled working-age adults to increase their 

work effort.

3. Renewing the Focus on Self-Sufficiency

The previous section demonstrated that expanding individual-level work requirement 

coverage in the three major non-cash welfare programs to levels approaching those in TANF 

would require a large share of non-disabled working-age beneficiaries to increase their 

engagement in the workforce to maintain full benefit eligibility. This and the following sections 

review trends and evidence that support the case for such expansions. 

Over the past 54 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty, 

Federal spending on welfare programs targeting low-income households has grown 

dramatically, contributing to a substantial reduction in material hardship. However, the 

expansion of cash-based welfare benefits like SSI to those not expected to work were matched 

by the growth in programs that reduced the self-sufficiency of those expected to work. This led 

to major reforms in the 1990s, as President Clinton promised to advance welfare reforms that 

would transition those expected to work into the workforce. Bipartisan legislation during his 

presidency reformed AFDC, the main cash-based welfare program for low-income households, 

in part by imposing strong work requirements on non-disabled working-age adults in TANF, its 

work-focused replacement. However, as we have discussed, welfare reforms of that era did 

little to change the work requirements for recipients of non-cash welfare programs who are 

capable of working. As we will show below, non-disabled working-age adults have become

increasingly reliant on welfare and experienced stalled employment growth, in part because of 

the disincentives welfare programs impose on increasing one’s own income. Program work 

requirements, which require recipients to work or engage in work-related activities in order to 

maintain benefits, can help overcome this problem. 

This section proceeds by documenting the success of the United States in reducing material 

hardship but explains that it also came at the cost of discouraging self-sufficiency. We begin by 

noting that the vast majority of Americans are currently able to meet their basic needs such as 

housing and food. Next, we document the dramatic progress in reducing poverty—correctly 

measured—over the past several decades. Finally, we document the rising dependency on the 

four welfare programs discussed in Section 2 and the stunted work effort of non-disabled

working-age adults. These observations motivate a renewed focus on strengthening selfsufficiency in welfare programs. 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 25

A. Meeting basic needs

One of the most basic human needs is shelter. Fortunately, homelessness is rare in the United 

States. On a given night in January 2017, 99.9 percent of people had shelter and 99.8 percent

were housed (not in a homeless shelter).

16 Throughout the year, 99.6 percent of people will not 

spend a single night in a homeless shelter (HUD 2017). Even if the vast majority of Americans 

are housed, another concern is the quality of housing they inhabit. Fortunately, the fraction of 

Americans living in housing of particularly poor quality housing is small as well. According to 

the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 98.7 percent of U.S. households had 

no severe physical inadequacies in their housing unit in 2015 (Watson et al. 2017).

17

Another basic need is food. As with shelter, the vast majority of Americans have reliable access 

to food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts an annual survey assessing “food 

insecurity” (not hunger) experienced by Americans. While 12.9 percent of people lived in 

households defined as food insecure in 2016, this includes households which always had 

sufficient food but at some point during the year had difficulty in obtaining food or reduced 

diet quality as a consequence of limited resources (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2017). Meanwhile, 

4.6 percent of people lived in households with “very low food security,” which means that food 

intake was reduced due to insufficient resources at some point during the year and sometimes 

a household member experienced hunger (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2017). In 2016, 1.0 percent of 

children lived in households with very low food security among children. These are extremely 

serious problems for the individuals who experience them, but they are not common: over 95 

percent of all Americans and 99 percent of American children generally do not have to reduce 

food intake at any point during the year.

Almost all Americans have access to clean water and electricity (World Bank 2014; 2015). In 

2009, 76 percent of households below the official poverty line owned a car (U.S. Department of 

Transportation 2014). In addition, in 2016, 97 percent of American adults under age 65 had a 

mobile phone, and 85 percent had a smartphone (Pew Research Center 2018). None of these 

 

16 Note that counts are conducted during the winter in order to increase the portion of the total homeless 

population found in shelters, where it is easier to find and count people experiencing homelessness. This timing 

likely results in the unsheltered count being lower but the sheltered count being higher than they would be during 

warmer months.

17 Any of the following four conditions trigger a severe inadequacy: (i) “Lacking piped hot water or a flush toilet or 

lacking both bathtub and shower, all for the exclusive use of the unit.” (ii) Having been uncomfortably cold during 

the past winter for 24 hours or more, or three times for at least 6 hours each, because of broken-down heating 

equipment.” (iii) “Having no electricity or having all three of the following electrical problems: exposed wiring, a 

room with no working wall outlet, and three or more blown fuses or tripped circuit breakers in the past 90 days.” 

(iv) “Having any five of the following six maintenance problems: leaks from outdoors, leaks from indoors, holes in 

the floor, holes or open cracks in the walls or ceilings, more than 1 square foot of peeling paint or plaster, and rats 

in the past 90 days” (HUD 2017).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 26

statistics is intended to deny the ways in which millions of Americans sometimes struggle to 

make ends meet, or serves to imply that many Americans would not be better off with more 

resources. Nevertheless, contrary to the latest United Nations report on extreme poverty in the 

United States, these numbers do suggest that the vast majority of Americans are able to meet 

their basic human needs (for report, see United Nations 2018).

B. Success in reducing poverty

While the vast majority of Americans today are able to meet their basic needs, a separate 

question is whether material wellbeing for those at the bottom of the distribution has 

improved over time. The official estimates, based on the CPS–ASEC, would seem to suggest 

otherwise. Figure 4 shows the percent of the population below the official poverty threshold in 

each year since 1959, the first year poverty data are available. As of 2016, 12.7 percent of 

Americans, over 40 million people, fell below the poverty line (US Census Bureau 2017). That is 

approximately equal to the poverty rate of 12.8 percent in 1968.18 While there was a large drop 

in poverty between 1959 and 1969, when the official measure fell from 22.4 percent to 12.1 

percent, the poverty rate appears to have remained relatively constant since then. 

However, as has been widely established, the official poverty measure is a deeply flawed

reflection of material hardship. First, rising levels of non-cash welfare benefits (e.g., Medicaid 

 

18 Mollie Orshansky developed the official poverty measure in the 1960s, but notably, she did not intend for the 

measure to be used to measure progress in reducing poverty over time (Fisher 1997). This poverty threshold was 

defined simply as the estimated cost of a basic food budget multiplied by three, since the average household 

spent one-third of its total budget on food in a 1955 food consumption survey. A household was poor if its pre-tax 

and post-cash transfer income (that is, excluding non-cash benefits and tax credits) fell below this threshold.

0

5

10

15

20

25

1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015

War on poverty

declared (1964)

Figure 4. Percent of Population in Poverty, Official Measure, 

1959–2016

Percent

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey; National Bureau of Economic Research; CEA calculations.

Note: Grey shaded regions denote a recession for at least four months of a given year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 27

SNAP and housing assistance) provided to low-income households are excluded when 

determining whether a household’s resources exceed the poverty threshold. Second, the 

official poverty measure only includes before-tax income. For this reason, it also misses the 

dramatic shift of the federal income tax burden away from the bottom of the income 

distribution via increases in initial tax thresholds and the growth in refundable tax credits 

including the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Because of these two flaws, 

the official poverty measure does not adequately capture the important redistribution of 

market income through the tax-and-transfer system to the bottom part of the income 

distribution. A third flaw with the official poverty measure is its use of the general consumer 

price index (CPI) for adjusting its poverty thresholds to account for inflation each year. The CPI 

overstates rising prices, and so poverty thresholds grow faster than they should in order to 

maintain a constant level of real resources (for more discussion of these points, see for 

example, Burkhauser 2009, Meyer and Sullivan 2012a, and Meyer and Sullivan 2012b).

19

In response to these and other concerns with the official poverty measure, the Census Bureau 

began publishing its supplemental poverty measure in 2010.

20 Unlike the official measure, it 

focuses on post-tax income and so it includes refundable tax credits, and it incorporates noncash benefits including SNAP and housing assistance, although it excludes the value of health 

insurance benefits. However, while these benefits are included as income, research has found 

that the CPS–ASEC undercounts such benefits (Meyer et al. 2015). Another difference between 

the supplemental measure and the official measure is that the Census Bureau adjusts the 

poverty threshold for the supplemental measure each year using the average change in the 

expenditures of moderate-income households on necessities (food, shelter, etc.) While this 

avoids the problem of identifying the appropriate inflation measure for adjusting poverty 

thresholds each year, it also transforms poverty into a measure of relative wellbeing rather 

than absolute wellbeing, a change that is inconsistent with the original intent of the official 

poverty measure. For example, if the inflation-adjusted incomes of all poor households 

doubled, the poverty rate would not change if spending by moderate-income households on 

necessities doubled as well. 

Given the shortcomings of both the official and supplemental poverty measures in assessing 

absolute changes in material wellbeing over time, economists have developed a poverty 

measure based on consumption: how much a household spends in a given year. A 

consumption-based poverty measure has important advantages over income-based 

measures. 

 

19 For example, the CPI-U does not fully account for the ability of consumers to substitute to other goods when the 

price of a given good rises.

20 Another flaw of all poverty measures described in this report is that they exclude the value of leisure time.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 28

First, annual income is not necessarily a good measure of resources available to a household 

in that year. For example, a household with significant wealth that experiences a temporary 

reduction in income will likely still have sufficient resources to meet its basic needs. In addition, 

households of all income levels may receive assistance from relatives or friends that does not 

necessarily show up in reported income but does show up in reported spending. 

Second, a consumption-based measure overcomes the practical issue of underreporting of 

welfare benefits and tax credits in income-based measures. In general, consumption appears 

to be more accurately (though still imperfectly) reported than income, especially for lowincome households (Meyer and Sullivan 2012a). Meyer and Sullivan (2012a) also show that a 

consumption-based measure appears to outperform both the official and supplemental 

poverty measures in capturing the most disadvantaged people based on their purchases of 

non-necessities, holding constant the share of the population considered poor by each 

measure. For example, the “consumption-poor” are less likely to have appliances such as 

dishwashers and air conditioning. In addition, they are less likely to have a college graduate as 

the head of their household (7 percent for the “consumption-poor” compared to 9 percent for 

the “official poor” and 10 percent for the “supplemental poor” as of 2010) (Meyer and Sullivan 

2012a).

Ultimately, a consumption-based poverty measure can provide a better understanding of the 

progress in reducing poverty than other measures because it focuses on resources that 

households have available to consume and because it has less severe measurement issues. 

Figure 5 shows a consumption-based poverty measure from Meyer and Sullivan (2017), which 

excludes spending on or receipt of healthcare and education.21 Whilethe threshold is arbitrary, 

Meyer and Sullivan (2017) set their threshold such that the number of people in poverty based 

on their consumption-based measure is equal to the number in poverty based on the official 

measure as of 1980, because in earlier years, the consumption survey they use is only available 

 

21 While an empirical consumption-based poverty measure has a number of strengths, it also has potential 

weaknesses. Among the most important potential weaknesses concerns its treatment of spending on healthcare. 

This is especially important because Medicaid is currently the largest Federal expenditure among welfare 

programs. In their consumption-based poverty measure, Meyer and Sullivan (2012a) argue that healthcare is an 

investment in human capital (which presumably indirectly boosts consumption in the future), and so they exclude 

current healthcare spending in determining whether households fall below the consumption-based poverty line. 

However, one could equally argue that the purchase of “health insurance” is more like the purchase of “fire 

insurance.” Hence, like fire insurance, its purchase is a necessary expenditure to protect one’s self from the risk of 

a health event in the current period of accounting. Given the rise in health insurance spending on the poor in 

recent decades, this may lead to understating progress made in reducing poverty. Spending on education is also 

not included in their consumption-based measure of poverty because it is an investment in human capital. While 

it may be, school attendance may also have a consumption value. Excluding this input will understate its value 

and given the increase in spending on education, understate progress in reducing poverty over time.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 29

intermittently. In addition to focusing on consumption, they also diverge from the official 

poverty measure by utilizing a more accurate measure of inflation.

Between 1961 and 2016, consumption-based poverty fell from 30 percent to 3 percent, 

amounting to a 90 percent decline (and it fell by 77 percent since 1980). This likely even 

understates the reduction in material hardship as it omits the consumption-value of increased 

public expenditure on healthcare and education for the poor. Based on historical standards of 

material wellbeing and the terms of engagement, our War on Poverty is largely over and a 

success.

Of course, the trends in Figure 5 do not necessarily imply that the expansion of welfare

programs caused the reduction in poverty, although they have likely played an important role. 

On a pure accounting basis, these programs mechanically reduce poverty by increasing the

incomes of low-income households, potentially pushing some over the poverty threshold 

(Meyer and Wu 2018). However, this assumes that work as observed in the presence of these 

programs would have been the same in their absence. Given work disincentives in these 

programs, that is unlikely to be the case. Section 5 reviews the evidence on employment effects 

of means-tested programs, and while the net effect of increases in government transfer 

programs has increased the total income of those who receive them, there is a significant

literature finding important reductions in work effort.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015

Official Poverty Consumption Poverty

Anchor year

(1980)

War on poverty

declared (1964)

Figure 5. Percent of Population in Poverty, Official Measure 

and Consumption-Based Measure, 1959–2016

Percent

Sources: Meyer and Sullivan (2017); National Bureau of Economic Research; CEA calculations.

Note: Meyer and Sullivan anchor their consumption poverty measure at 1980 ensuring that the percent of the population 

falling below the consumption-based poverty threshold is equal to the percent of the population falling below the 

official poverty threshold in that year. Grey shaded regions denote a recession for at least four months of a given year. 

Grey shaded regions denote a recession for at least four months of a given year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 30

C. The decline of self-sufficiency

While material hardship has fallen drastically over the past several decades, challenges remain 

in strengthening self-sufficiency among those receiving welfare benefits and ensuring that 

those society expects to work actually do so. This subsection uses the CPS–ASEC to document

trends in dependency, which we define as receipt of benefits from Medicaid, SNAP, housing 

assistance or TANF at some point during the year. This definition differs from that used in 

Section 2, in which we identified welfare recipients based on receipt of program benefits during 

a given month using SIPP data. The need for a broader definition used in this section arises 

from the fact that the CPS–ASEC, while allowing us to examine long-term trends in selfsufficiency, does not track welfare benefits received in each individual month. Our definition 

of dependency in this section also differs from that used in some other research. For example, 

Crouse and Macartney (2018) define an individual as “dependent” if her family receives more 

than half of its income from a combination of SSI, SNAP and/or TANF. Our definition excludes 

SSI given our focus on non-disabled working-age adults, and we include Medicaid and housing 

assistance.

Using the CPS–ASEC, Figure 6a shows the percent of non-disabled working-age adults receiving 

benefits from any of the four welfare programs analyzed in Section 2—Medicaid, SNAP, housing 

assistance or TANF. In 1979, 9.5 percent of non-disabled working-age adults received 

assistance from at least one of these four programs at some point during the year. By 2016, the 

share more than doubled, reaching 19.4 percent. Medicaid and SNAP receipt among nondisabled working-age adults has grown the most, especially since the year 2000, while 

AFDC/TANF receipt has declined since welfare reform in the 1990s (Figure 6b).22 In other words, 

almost one in five non-disabled working-age adults now receives welfare benefits from one of 

these four programs over the course of a year, with the vast majority coming in the form of noncash benefits. Given substantial underreporting of welfare benefits in the CPS–ASEC (as well as 

other government surveys), this likely understates the share of non-disabled working-age

adults who rely on these four welfare programs (see Meyer et al. 2015 for evidence of 

underreporting of welfare benefits in surveys). Furthermore, it misses their receipt of other 

welfare programs such as energy assistance and childcare subsidies.

 

22 Note that the orders of program growth across the four programs based on CPS–ASEC data in this figure are the 

same as the ones we provide using administrative records data for the entire program population on these 

programs in Figure 1. However, the size of the growth for Medicaid and housing is greater relative to growth in the 

size of the total population on these programs.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 31

0

4

8

12

16

20

1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015

AFDC/TANF Housing SNAP Medicaid Any program

Figure 6a. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age Adults 

(18–64) Receiving Welfare Program Benefits, 1979-2016

Percent

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015

AFDC/TANF Housing SNAP Medicaid Any program

Figure 6b. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age Adults 

(18-64) Receiving Welfare Program Benefits, 1979-2016, 

Indexed to 1979

Index

Sources: Current Population Survey, March Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 1980-2017; National Bureau of 

Economic Research; CEA calculations.

Note: “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social 

Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). Working-age refers to ages 18 through 64. Welfare 

recipients are identified based on receipt of Medicaid, SNAP, housing or AFDC/TANF at any time during the full 

calendar year. Series begins in 1979 because CPS only began recording food stamp/SNAP receipt in survey year 1980 

based on respondents previous year’s receipt of any benefits. We identify Medicaid recipients based on individual 

coverage. We identify SNAP, housing and AFDC/TANF recipients based on receipt of assistance by the household. Grey 

shaded regions denote a recession for at least four months of a given year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 32

In general, the use of welfare programs increases during recessions and after policy changes 

that make them more broadly available, with both factors playing important roles in the past 

decade. Within the entire period we consider, dependency on welfare programs rose and fell 

between the business cycle peak years of 1979-1989, but was lower in 1989 than 1979. It once 

again rose and fell between the business cycle peak years of 1989-2000, but was about the 

same in 2000 as it was in 1989 and lower than in 1979. While it once again rose and fell between 

the business cycle peak years of 2000-2007, welfare program dependency was substantially 

above its 2000 level by 2007. During the current business cycle that began with the Great 

Recession, welfare dependency peaked in 2014 (the highest level during our period of analysis), 

well after the end of the Great Recession and well into recovery years. It had only slightly 

decreased from this peak by 2016, the last year of our data. However, most of this later increase 

in dependency well after the Great Recession is due to a policy change that substantially 

increased the income threshold for eligibility for Medicaid beginning in 2014. While the 

recession of 2001 and the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 certainly contributed to 

temporary increases in the welfare rolls among people expected to work, by 2016, the Great 

Recession had been over for 7 years. The continued rise in Medicaid and still large dependency 

on SNAP by non-disabled working-age recipients reflects changes in policy in each of these 

programs which made them easier to access and that expanded eligibility to new populations. 

Note that part of this increase may also be due to changes in CPS methods in 2014 that better 

capture receipt of transfers (Semega and Welniak 2015).23

Figure 7a shows rates of welfare receipt for each of the groups of non-disabled working-age

adults considered in Section 2 (childless adults age 18-49 and 50-64, and adults with a youngest 

child age 6-17, 1-5, and less than 1). In the most recent year of our data, 2016, childless adults 

have the lowest rates of dependency, 16.1 percent for those between 18-49 and 13.5 percent 

for those between 50 and 64, while adults with young children have much higher rates, 29.9 

percent for those with a youngest child between 1 and 5 and 32.0 percent for those with a child 

under 1. However, reliance on welfare programs has increased much more for childless adults. 

Childless adults age 18 to 49 (50 to 64) are 3.0 (2.9) times as likely to receive benefits from one 

of the four welfare programs in 2016 as they were in 1979 (Figure 7b). Welfare receipt has 

increased for non-disabled working-age adults with children as well, but to a much lesser 

extent. In 2016, adults with a youngest child between 1 and 5 were 1.6 times as likely to receive 

welfare benefits compared to 1979, and adults with a child under 1 were 1.4 times as likely to 

receive benefits. Adults with older children had a welfare dependency rate that was 2.3 times 

as high as in 1979.

 

23 For survey year 2014, we calculate population estimates based on the 3/8 and 5/8 surveys, and we take the 

average to form our estimate for the year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 33
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 34

Aside from dependency on welfare programs, another important dimension of self-sufficiency 

is whether non-disabled working-age recipients work. Figure 8a shows work rates for each of

the five groups of non-disabled working-age adults, based on the CPS–ASEC. While the percent 

of non-disabled working-age adults working at a point in time increased from 1979 until 2000, 

this overall trend masks marked differences between men and women. While women saw 

employment gains throughout the 1980s and 1990s as social expectations shifted regarding 

their labor force participation, men have faced a persistent decline in employment (see 

Eberstadt 2016). 

Since 2000, the overall work rate for non-disabled working-age adults fell from 77.6 percent to 

74.2 percent in 2017, a 3.4 percentage point decline. Over half of this decline (1.9 percentage 

points) occurred between 2000 and 2007, before the Great Recession began. The remaining 1.5 

percentage points of the decline occurred between 2007 and 2017. While the Great Recession 

contributed to a large decline in employment between 2007 and 2011, the recovery has been 

slow relative to previous recessions, and despite a tight labor market in 2017, employment was 

still 1.5 percentage points below its 2007 level.

From Figure 8a and 8b we can also see how specific groups of non-disabled working-age adults 

have fared in terms of employment. In 1979, the employment rate for childless adults age 18 to 

49 was 9.4 percentage points higher than the overall rate for all non-disabled working-age 

adults. By 2017, it dropped substantially and was only 2.6 percentage points higher. Notably, 

this group also experienced the largest increase in welfare receipt over time. By contrast, older 

childless adults (50-64) experienced a relatively larger rise in their employment rate compared 

to all non-disabled working-age adults. Non-disabled working-age adults with children 

between 6 and 17 have largely followed the overall trend, while those with younger children 

(especially those with infants) have outperformed it.

While the causes of trends in welfare receipt and employment among non-disabled workingage adults are still the subject of much debate (Mulligan 2012; Moffitt 2015), the increasing 

access to and take-up of welfare programs has likely played an important role in discouraging 

self-sufficiency.24 In Section 5, we document a substantial body of evidence finding significant 

reductions in work effort induced by various welfare programs.25 Holding aside for the moment 

the magnitude of this causal relationship, the fact that self-sufficiency has declined along with 

 

24 Though not the focus of this report, there is also a growing literature that finds major reductions in employment 

caused by receipt of Disability Insurance (Maestas, Mullen, and Strand 2013; French and Song 2014; Autor et al. 

2016). This suggests that some people receiving disability benefits could have continued to work. See Burkhauser 

and Daly (2011) for a history of the DI and SSI programs and their potential effect on work. 

25 There is also evidence suggesting that welfare programs can potentially improve child outcomes, however, 

which in the long-run could increase their self-sufficiency and offset some of the negative impact on adult 

employment (Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2018).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 35

the dramatic decline in material hardship in recent decades warrants a renewed focus on selfsufficiency. Work requirements in welfare programs may be capable of increasing employment 

among non-disabled working-age recipients and reducing reliance on government assistance 

by them and their households.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 36

4. Work Requirements Complement Positive Incentives

Although expanding the coverage of work requirements in non-cash welfare programs to 

include all those expected to work is one way to promote self-sufficiency, it is not necessarily 

the only way. While work requirements act as negative incentives that reduce assistance for 

people who do not work, positive incentives that subsidize earnings can increase work effort 

as well. There are important tradeoffs to each of these approaches: Positive incentives 

preserve benefits for those who do not work, but they also discourage work when phased out 

at higher levels of earnings and they can be expensive to taxpayers. Negative incentives are 

less expensive and avoid discouraging work further up the earnings distribution, but they pose 

a risk of loss of benefits for those who continue not to work.

In this section, we document the current incentives faced by non-disabled working-age adults

living in low-income households who receive assistance from an array of cash and non-cash 

welfare programs. We show that potential workers in such households who are not working fail 

to do so despite facing low implicit marginal taxes on work. However, low-wage, part-time 

workers in such households can face much higher implicit taxes if they work more hours, 

mostly from the phase-out of the EITC and other welfare benefits they are currently receiving. 

Increasing these positive incentives by, for instance, increasing the EITC phase-in credit might 

increase the employment of non-workers but would further increase the disincentives of parttime workers to work additional hours (to the extent that efforts to create a cost-neutral policy 

would result in the simultaneous implementation of more rapid phase-out of program 

benefits). In contrast, expanding work requirement coverage to non-workers would increase 

theiremployment without negatively affecting theemployment behavior of part-time workers.

A. Marginal tax rates faced by potential workers living in low-income households

We first document the implicit marginal tax rates faced by non-disabled working-age adults

who livein a low-income household and currently receive benefits from welfare programs. For 

heuristic purposes, we focus on the case of a single adult with two children. The implicit 

marginal tax rate the potential worker faces is the fraction of a dollar of additional wage 

earnings forgone after accounting for taxes and lost welfare benefits. The higher the marginal 

tax rate, the larger the disincentive to increase earnings. In the extreme case, a marginal tax 

rate of over 100 percent would imply that a worker actually loses money by earning more. 

To document marginal tax rates for low-income adults, we first simulate marginal tax rates at 

various levels of work effort assuming that the adult in the simulation qualifies for several 

welfare programs. This exercise indicates how the rules of programs interact at different levels 

of work effort to reward additional work. However, a limitation of this method is that it does 

not show the actual distribution of workers who face these marginal tax rates, based on (i) 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 37

where they fall in the earnings distribution, and (ii) whether they actually receive benefits from 

each of the programs for which they qualify (indeed, simultaneous receipt of all of the 

programs analyzed is rare). Thus, we also analyze recent research that has estimated marginal 

tax rates for the U.S. population based on their actual income and benefits received.

Calculating hypothetical marginal tax rates requires specifying not only the number of adults

and dependent children in the qualifying unit or household, but also a number of other 

characteristics of the household (State of residence, rent or mortgage obligations, assets, 

benefits currently received, etc.), which can affect how benefits change as a worker earns more 

wage income. Even with this information, calculating how benefits change is still quite 

complex. Welfare programs interact with one another in various ways, there are nuanced rules 

about which types of income count in reducing benefits and in what ways, and different States 

have different rules as well as State supplements for some programs. Thus to calculate our

hypothetical marginal tax rates we use the Urban Institute’s Net Income Change Calculator. 

When we provide all the necessary characteristics about a given low income household, it 

calculates how benefits and net taxes change as earnings rise in that household.

Beyond incorporating the complex set of rules that govern how benefits change as earnings 

rise, calculating marginal tax rates also requires aggregating benefits across programs that 

offer various types of assistance. While we can simply add cash benefits together, it is less 

obvious how we should value non-cash assistance such as health insurance, food, and housing 

assistance. Following Kosar and Moffitt (2017), we assume that SNAP benefits are valued by 

recipients at 100 percent of their dollar value. However, they argue that other non-cash

transfers should be valued differently. In fact, Finkelstein et al. (2016) estimate that Medicaid 

recipients only value benefits at about $0.20 to $0.50 per dollar spent by the government on 

their behalf, and Gallen (2015) estimates a value of about $0.35. Following Kosar and Moffitt 

(2017), we assume a value of $0.30 on the dollar for Medicaid and the Children’s Health 

Insurance Program (CHIP). Olsen (2008) summarizes research on the value of housing 

assistance to recipients, noting that recipients value public housing at much less than its cost, 

while they value vouchers near the benefits received. We follow Kosar and Moffitt (2017) by 

assuming that recipients value housing assistance at about $0.70 per dollar in benefits 

received.

Figure 9 shows the simulated total monthly income for a household (post-tax and welfare 

benefits) with one adult and two children based on various levels of weekly work hours. We 

consider hourly wages for the adult of $7.50, $10.00, $12.50 and $15.00. We assume the 

household receives (if eligible given its earnings) TANF, SNAP, EITC, and housing assistance, as 

well as Medicaid or CHIP. It is important to emphasize that not everyone who qualifies for these

benefits receives them, and so the marginal tax rates shown here may overstate marginal tax 

rates faced by many households.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 38

There are several important observations related to Figure 9 that demonstrate the importance 

of program rules on work incentives. 

First, without work, the non-disabled working-age parent of two children in this household 

could receive over $1,600 worth of monthly income, coming entirely from TANF, SNAP, housing 

assistance, and Medicaid. However, in the case of TANF, these benefits would be subject to a 5-

year time limit, and unless the youngest child were under the age of 1, this adult would be 

subject to work requirements in most States. Furthermore, while we are assuming that this 

family would be eligible for housing assistance in our simulation, not all who are eligible for the 

benefit receive it. Thus, total monthly income would be lower at all levels of weekly hours for 

households who do not receive housing assistance.

$0

$500

$1,000

$1,500

$2,000

$2,500

$3,000

$3,500

0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40

Net earnings EITC TANF SNAP Housing assistance Medicaid/CHIP

Wage: $7.50 Wage: $10.00 Wage: $12.50 Wage: $15.00

Weekly work hours

Figure 9. Simulated Monthly Household Income by Hourly 

Wage and Weekly Work, by Source of Income, 2012

Monthly income

Sources: Urban Institute Net Income Change Calculator; Kaiser Family Foundation (2018); CEA calculations.

Note: Net earnings is earnings net of Federal income tax (except for EITC), payroll tax and State income tax. We assume all 

household members live in Illinois, have no assets, and no vehicle. The household is composed of a single non-disabled 

working-age adult and his/her two children (ages 3 and 5). We assume his/ her monthly rent is $1,000. We assume he/she 

receives no childcare subsidies. We assume annual Medicaid spending on his/her behalf is $3,350 and annual Medicaid 

spending on behalf of each of his/her children is $2,108, based on annual cost estimates for Illinois from the Kaiser Family 

Foundation. We then divide annual cost estimates by 12 to obtain monthly estimates, and multiply these monthly benefits 

by 0.3 based on the assumption that recipients value Medicaid/CHIP at $0.30 per dollar of spending. We assume housing 

assistance is valued at $0.70 per dollar of benefits. We assign all other benefits at their dollar value. In Illinois in 2011, 

working adults with children could receive Medicaid with a household income up to 200 percent of the poverty line, and 

children could receive Medicaid/CHIP with a household income up to 300 percent of the poverty line.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 39

Second, as a worker making $7.50 per hour increases her work hours, her total income 

increases substantially up to and including working 40 hours per week, despite the fact that 

TANF, SNAP, and housing assistance all begin to phase out as earnings rise. This is because the 

EITC begins to phase in with the first dollar of earnings and largely replaces these benefits, 

without beginning to phase out until this low hourly wage individual works more than 40 hours

per week.26

Third, workers making $10 to $15 per hour experience significant increases in income at least 

up to 20 hours of work per week, but when they move up to 30 or 40 hours, the reward for 

additional work is much lower. This is because both welfare benefits and the EITC are phased 

out at these levels of earnings. 

 

26 While we focus on increases in hours for full-year workers, individuals can also adjust how many weeks per year 

they work. For the EITC, the distribution of hours throughout the year does not affect the size of the EITC received 

as long as total earnings remains constant.

0

25

50

75

100

0 10 20 30 40

$7.50 $10.00 $12.50 $15.00

Figure 10. Marginal Tax Rate When Increasing Weekly Hours 

of Work, by Hourly Wage, 2012 

Marginal tax rate

Sources: Urban Institute Net Income Change Calculator; Kaiser Family Foundation (2018); CEA calculations.

Note: We define our worker’s marginal tax rate as the increase in his/her monthly after-tax and post-transfer income when 

she works 10 more hours per week, divided by the increase in her pre-tax and pre-transfer earnings when she works 10 more 

hours per week. We assume all household members live in Illinois, have no assets, and no vehicle. The household is 

composed of a single non-disabled working-age adult and his/her two children (ages 3 and 5). We assume her monthly rent is 

$1,000. We assume he/she receives no childcare subsidies. We assume his/her annual spending on his/her behalf Medicaid is 

$3,350 and annual spending on behalf of each of his/her children Medicaid/CHIP is $2,108, based on annual cost estimates 

for Illinois from the Kaiser Family Foundation. We then divide annual cost estimates by 12 to obtain monthly estimates, and 

multiply these monthly benefits by 0.3 based on the assumption that recipients value Medicaid/CHIP at $0.30 per dollar of 

spending. We assume housing assistance is valued at $0.70 per dollar of benefits. We assign all other benefits at their dollar 

value.

Weekly hours of work
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 40

Figure 10 shows how these total income levels associated with various levels of work hours in 

Figure 9 translate into marginal tax rates for workers who are considering working an 

additional 10 hours per week. For a worker making $7.50 per hour, the marginal tax rate for 

increasing weekly hours of work by 10 (up to 40 hours) never leads to a marginal tax rate of 

more than 40 percent. Notably, the marginal tax rate for increasing weekly hours from 20 to 30 

hours per week is lower than that for increasing hours from 10 to 20 hours per week, a result of 

TANF having almost fully phased out at 20 hours of work. Thus, the lowest-wage workers 

generally have strong incentives to work additional hours up to a full-time workweek. The story 

is different, however, for workers making between $10 and $15 per hour. While marginal tax 

rates are below 40 percent for each of these workers considering working up to 20 hours per 

week, moving to 30 hours per week can lead to very high marginal tax rates for those making 

$12.50/hour (56 percent) and $15/hour (77 percent). Moving from 30 hours to 40 hours per week 

can lead to tax rates of 71 percent to 97 percent for those making $10, $12.50, or $15 per hour. 

While hypothetical marginal tax rates are informative in determining the types of people and 

decisions for whom marginal tax rates may be highest, they do not indicate how many 

households actually face these rates. Thus, we report estimates of the number of households 

actually facing various marginal tax rates in Figure 11, which is based on analysis conducted by 

2.6

4.7 4.3

1.2 0.8

8.4

1.4 0.3

0

4

8

12

Less than 0% 0% to 39% 40% to 79% 80% and larger

Marginal tax rate

Households with children Households without children

Figure 11. Distribution of Households Below 200 Percent of 

Poverty Line Over Marginal Tax Rate Based on Increases in 

Annual Earnings of $2,000, 2012

Sources: HHS (2018b), CEA calculations.

Note: The universe is all households headed by a non-disabled working-age adult, with household income below 200 

percent of the official poverty threshold in 2012. “Disabled” means that an individual receives disability benefits, and 

“working-age” means between the ages of 18 and 64. Marginal tax rates were tabulated by ASPE/HHS using their TRIM-III 

model, and they incorporate Medicaid/CHIP, SNAP, housing assistance, TANF, EITC, childcare subsidies, refundable tax 

credits, SSI, LIHEAP, unemployment compensation, child support, Social Security, and WIC. Marginal tax rates are based on 

increases in annual earnings of $2,000.

Households (millions)
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 41

the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services (HHS/ASPE), using data from the HHS-TRIM-III model (based on 

data from the CPS–ASEC). Unlike Figure 10, marginal tax rates in Figure 11 are based on 

potential increases in annual earnings of $2,000, for a nationally representative sample of lowincome U.S. households. 

Altogether, there were an estimated 23.8 million households in 2012 headed by a non-disabled 

working-age individual with income below 200 percent of the official poverty threshold, 46 

percent (11.0 million) of whom do not have dependent children. Of these 11.0 million 

households, the vast majority (76 percent) face marginal tax rates between 0 and 39 percent, 

and less than 3 percent face a marginal tax rate of more than 80 percent. Because these 

childless households will not qualify for as many means-tested programs, especially those with 

the highest benefit amounts, the phase-outs of their less generous benefits translate into lower 

marginal tax rates. This is not the case for workers with dependent children, whose marginal 

tax rates are much more dispersed. Of the 12.8 million households with children below 200 

percent of the poverty line, 20 percent (2.6 million) have a negative marginal tax rate, 37 

percent (4.7 million) have a marginal tax rate between 0 and 39 percent, 34 percent (4.3 million) 

have a marginal tax rate between 40 and 79 percent, and 10 percent (1.2 million) have a 

marginal tax rate of 80 percent or higher.

Unpublished analysis by HHS/ASPE further allows us to understand the characteristics of 

households with various marginal tax rates. Households facing negative marginal tax rates 

overwhelmingly have dependent children. Only 28 percent have a full-time year-round worker, 

while one-third report no work for the entire year. Median earnings are just $6,000 annually. 

Households with positive marginal tax rates are substantially different. For each positive 

marginal tax rate bucket of households, at least 54 percent have a full-time year-round worker, 

and median earnings are at least $19,000 annually. The very low earnings and lack of regular 

work for households with negative marginal tax rates is consistent with hypothetical marginal 

tax rate calculations, which found the lowest marginal tax rates for those with the lowest levels 

of work effort. In addition, as with the hypothetical case, those who are working, although not 

necessarily full time, generally face higher marginal tax rates.

B. Implications for work-promoting policies

Given the ways in which current welfare programs encourage or discourage work for various 

households, what are the implications for policies that would be likely to increase work rates 

among non-disabled working-age adults in low-income households? 

For low-skill potential workers in households with dependent children who do not currently 

work, simply further increasing the positive incentive to work may not be the best approach. 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 42

Although in the past, increasing the reward to work by increasing the EITC helped to bring 

many single mothers into the workforce, those adults still not working and considering 

beginning part-time work may already facevery low marginal tax rates. Furthermore, reducing 

phase-out rates for benefits or more quickly phasing in the maximum possible EITC payment 

would increase the cost of programs significantly, or increase marginal tax rates even further 

for low-income households with some employment who already face high marginal tax rates.

A more effective approach for moving non-disabled working-age parents who are still on the 

sidelines into the labor force may be work requirements, which reduce benefits for failure to 

either work, prepare to work, or participate in some other work activity. Work requirements 

can increase employment of those who are not working, without further increasing the 

disincentive to work additional hours among part-time workers in low-income households, 

and without necessarily increasing spending on welfare programs. 

The evidence (discussed in depth in Section 5) suggests that this could be an effective 

approach. As a component of State experimentation with welfare reform in the early 1990s and 

then with passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act 

(PRWORA), work requirements helped substantially reduce cash welfare receipt, increase work 

rates among single parent mothers, and contributed to reductions in child poverty. While there 

is always the risk that some non-disabled working-age adults will not comply with work 

requirements and risk benefit loss for their households, program administrators can mitigate 

this type of harm by only partially or temporarily reducing benefits for noncompliance and 

investing in work supports that make barriers to employment less difficult to overcome.

Finally, it is worth noting that adults without children qualify for much less generous EITC 

payments, and for this group, both work requirements and EITC expansions may be effective 

in increasing employment among those not currently working.

5. Evidence that Work Requirements Are Effective

Expanding work requirements in welfare programs would affect a large share of recipients. 

Although there are theoretical reasons for relying on expanded work requirements to build 

self-sufficiency among low-income households, it is important to consider the empirical 

evidence from past policies to inform these efforts.

In this section, we analyze two sets of evidence that suggest work-conditioned welfare

programs are uniquely able to simultaneously improve adult employment and improve child 

outcomes. First, we review the evidence on the effects welfare programs have on adults and 

children—we conclude that while programs not conditioned on work may improve child 

outcomes, they reduce adult work effort. In contrast, we conclude that programs conditioned 

on work (namely, the EITC) lead to improvements in child outcomes and increase adult work 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 43

effort. We then consider a large body of evidence from 1990s-era welfare reforms around the 

transition from AFDC to TANF. While it is difficult to parse out the role of work requirements 

from other TANF provisions, what is clear is that as a whole, these 1990s welfare reforms

reduced dependence and increased work for single mothers with children and they did so with

littleevidence of harm and some evidence of benefit to their children. Based on this review, we 

conclude that both adult and child outcomes can be enhanced by welfare programs that 

include well-designed work requirements.

A. Evidence from unconditional programs and work-conditioned programs

One of the most frequently studied questions related to welfare programs is what effect they 

have on the employment of recipients. For programs that lack work requirements, basic 

economic theory predicts that work effort will fall for two reasons.27 First, recipients who do 

not work will have higher incomes because of the program, leading them to use their time on 

other activities and as a result, spend fewer hours working. Second, because benefits must 

begin to phase out at some level of income, the implicit tax on earnings rises and discourages 

work. A number of studies, based on randomized experiments or quasi-experimental designs,

provide strong empirical support for this theoretical prediction across various programs.

Several studies find that receipt of housing assistance reduces labor supply. Jacob and Ludwig 

(2012) evaluate the impact of receipt of a Section 8 housing voucher on adult employment, 

utilizing a random lottery in Chicago to allocate vouchers. This study design ensures that 

results are due to voucher receipt rather than selection of certain types of households into the 

program. They find that labor force participation falls by 6 percent and earnings fall by 10 

percent as a result of receiving these vouchers. Two randomized controlled trials funded by the 

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provide additional evidence that housing 

vouchers reduce employment in the short-run. Mills et al. (2006) find that among TANF 

recipients randomly selected to receive Section 8 housing vouchers, employment fell by 5 to 8

percent in the first year, although this effect faded out in later years. Gubits et al. (2015) find 

that for homeless families randomly selected to receive vouchers instead of treatment as 

usual, employment falls by 19 percent 20 months later, an effect which again appears to fade 

over the longer term (Gubits et al. 2016). (See Collinson et al. 2016 for a review of the literature 

on housing programs.)

Studies also have found that SNAP and Medicaid receipt can significantly reduce adult 

employment. Hoynes and Schanzenbach (2012) utilize the staggered county-wide rollout of 

the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s to estimate that food stamp receipt reduces 

 

27 In theory, it is possible that non-cash assistance could increase work productivity (e.g., housing assistance

provided in close proximity to work), and thus, potentially increase work effort.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 44

hours worked among female heads of households by over 50 percent. They also find that 

employment falls by up to 27 percentage points among recipients in general, though of course, 

employment effects of the modern SNAP program may differ. Two recent studies find strong 

employment effects of Medicaid on work rates among childless adults: Garthwaite et al. (2014) 

find that losing Medicaid coverage increases employment by 63 percentage points, and Dague 

et al. (2017) finds that gaining Medicaid coverage reduces employment by 5 percentage points

for this population.28 Meanwhile, Dave et al. (2015) find that Medicaid receipt substantially 

reduces employment among pregnant women. However, other studies find weaker or no 

effects of Medicaid on employment. For example, Baicker et al. (2014) find that employment 

only fell by a statistically insignificant 1.6 percentage points based on a randomized controlled 

trial in Oregon. (See Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2016, and Buchmueller et al. 2016 for reviews 

of the literature on SNAP and Medicaid, respectively.)

Finally, Robins (1985) summarizes the labor market effects of a series ofrandomized controlled 

trials in the 1970s testing theimpact of a negative income tax (a cash payment that is gradually 

reduced as a household increases its earnings) on labor supply. In these trials, maximum 

benefit levels were relatively generous (ranging from 50 to 140 percent of the Federal poverty 

line) with benefits typically reduced at a rate of 30 to 70 cents for each additional dollar of 

earnings. He found that a negative income tax significantly reduces employment. For single 

female heads of households, employment fell by 16 percent. Meanwhile, employment fell by 4 

percent for married men and by 23 percent for married women.

In total, a significant body of evidence generally suggests that welfare programs which do not 

require work reduce employment among adults, with estimates varying widely across 

programs and specific studies. These studies usually evaluate the impact of only a single 

program at a time, whereas households often benefit from multiple programs. Thus, the total 

effect of these programs is likely larger than the effect of any single program.

In contrast to the negative effects of these welfare programs on work, there is an important 

example of a work-conditioned program that increases employment. Specifically, the EITC has 

an implicit work requirement since only those in low-income households who work will receive 

the tax credit. Economic theory predicts that the EITC will increase the likelihood that a 

potential worker in such a household will work, since this program will increase the after-tax 

hourly wage this worker can earn. However, at some point, the EITC will reduce the number of 

 

28 Garthwaite et al. (2014) find that when Tennessee disenrolled a large number of childless adults, there was a 7.3 

percentage point decline in Medicaid enrollment and a 4.6 percentage point increase in employment among 

childless adults, using a triple difference design to isolate the causal effects of the policy. These estimates imply 

that for childless adults who were disenrolled from Medicaid, their employment increased by 63 percentage 

points (.046 divided by .073). This is consistent with Medicaid receipt reducing employment by 63 percentage 

points among childless adults, if results are symmetric for gaining or losing coverage.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 45

hours worked for those already working, both because it increases income given current work 

effort, and because at some level of wage earnings EITC benefits begin to phase out imposing 

an implicit tax on earnings.

A number of studies show that the EITC has significant and large positive effects in inducing 

potential workers into the labor force (e.g., Eissa and Liebman 1996; Meyer and Rosenbaum 

2001; Grogger 2003). However, one caveat is that the EITC causes the employment of second 

earners in married households to fall, when their combined earnings lift them into the phaseout region (Eissa and Hoynes 2004). In addition, while initial evidence suggested little effect of 

the EITC on the number of hours people work, Chetty et al. (2013) find evidence of increased 

work effort in the phase-in region and somewhat less work effort in the phase-out region of the 

EITC benefit schedule, due to increasing knowledge of the structure of the EITC among 

potential recipients. Nonetheless, the EITC has an overall effect of increasing employment, 

especially among those who would otherwise not work at all, and increasing both earnings and 

total household income. In addition, Grogger (2004) shows that the EITC reduces the rate at 

which low-income households receive other welfare programs. (See Nichols and Rothstein 

2016 for a recent review of the literature on the EITC.)

While adult employment is important, the overall effectiveness of welfare programs depends 

on their effects on children as well. A growing body of research has focused on the impact of 

welfare programs on child outcomes. Results based on entry into welfare programs that do not 

require work are mixed but generally favorable, especially based on programs rolled out 

several decades ago (although with these studies, the ability to track long-term child outcomes 

into adulthood comes at the cost of dated and potentially less applicable results). Almond et 

al. (2011) show that a mother’s access to food stamps in the 1960s and 1970s improved her

child’s birth outcomes, and Hoynes et al. (2016) show that children’s access to food stamps

improved their physical health and measures of economic self-sufficiency for girls upon 

reaching adulthood. Negative income tax experiments conducted in the 1970s led to 

improvements in child test scores (Maynard and Murnane 1979; Salkind and Haskins 1982). A 

large number of studies show that children’s access to Medicaid significantly improves

outcomes in terms of health, education, and earnings. Housing assistance, however, has not 

generally been shown to improve child outcomes such as test scores, educational attainment, 

health, or crime (Mills et al. 2011; Jacob et al. 2015),

29 in spite of the fact that housing vouchers 

 

29 However, Gubits et al. (2016) find that when homeless families receive a housing voucher, children rotate 

through fewer schools and are less likely to have behavior problems. Chetty et al. (2016) find that housing 

vouchers tied to lower-poverty neighborhoods lead to better long-term outcomes for young children compared 

to public housing in higher-poverty neighborhoods; however, this study does identify what effect housing 

assistance has on recipients, only that one form of housing assistance is superior to another form of housing 

assistance based these outcomes.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 46

often provide deep subsidies to recipients. (For a recent review of the literature on the impacts 

of welfare programs on child outcomes, see Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2018.)

Meanwhile, research shows that welfare programs that link benefits to work significantly 

improve child outcomes. The EITC improves test scores, educational attainment, adult 

employment, and infant health (Dahl and Lochner 2012; Dahl and Lochner 2017; Chetty et al. 

2011; Hoynes et al. 2015; Manoli and Turner 2018; Michelmore and Bastian forthcoming). In an 

extensive review of the literature on the EITC, Nichols and Rothstein (2016) note that “there is 

robust evidence of quite large effects of the EITC on children’s academic achievement,” 

compared to the “relatively small estimates of effects of family income on student outcomes 

that come from non-EITC settings.” Meanwhile, Duncan et al. (2011) find that “welfare-towork” experiments during the 1990s that provided additional income through increased 

rewards to work led to improved test scores for children.

Why might work-conditioned programs improve child outcomes more than programs that 

provide resources unconditionally? Jacob et al. (2015) suggest one reason for the discrepancy 

between results for housing assistance compared to the EITC could be that the EITC 

simultaneously provides income and encourages adult employment, potentially exposing 

children to higher quality childcare environments at early ages. Housing assistance, on the 

other hand, provides additional income but discourages adult employment. This does not 

explain results based on SNAP rollout in the 1960s and 1970s which strongly discouraged work 

and improved child outcomes, although it is possible that the mechanisms through which 

increased assistance affects outcomes (including increased use of formal childcare and 

reduced material hardship) has changed over time. In addition, there is strong evidence that 

Medicaid provision for children significantly improves child outcomes, although Medicaid 

provision to children may have different effects than programs such as housing and food 

assistance that free up income to spend on other areas.

Ultimately, there is strong evidence that work-conditioned assistance in the form of the EITC 

improves child outcomes, and potentially, more so than unconditional assistance. This may 

have important lessons for pairing welfare programs such as Medicaid, SNAP or housing 

assistance with work requirements. Of course, the EITC is structured differently than these 

other programs, for example, paying benefits in cash at a single time each year, which could 

have further implications for child outcomes. Nonetheless, to the extent that work 

requirements in non-cash welfare programs can boost recipients’ incomes while also 

increasing adult employment, they may have similar effects found for the EITC. 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 47

B. Evidence from welfare reform

While extensive research suggests that work conditioned assistance programs, especially the 

EITC, increase adult employment and improve child outcomes, it is less clear from the above 

discussion that work requirements in existing programs have similar results. Relatedly, the 

above studies do not provide direct evidence on how attaching work requirements to existing 

assistance programs would affect outcomes. However, experience from 1990s-era welfare 

reforms, which transformed AFDC into TANF, can shed some light on this question. 

In 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and 

Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). PRWORA’s central component was the 

transformation of the AFDC cash assistance program for families, which historically had few 

work requirements for recipients, into TANF, which imposed strong work requirements and 

time limits, and devolved substantial autonomy to States in part by block granting the 

program. Rigorous experimentation by the States demonstrating the merits of stronger work 

requirements together with increasing rewards for work and time limits motivated the passage 

of this legislation. The results of these experiments as well as research on the impact of the 

1996 law provide important evidence on the effects of stronger work requirements in welfare

programs, although it is generally difficult to distinguish the impact of work requirements from 

other components of the law.

Figure 12 shows for single mothers with children, (i) AFDC/TANF receipt, (ii) employment, and 

(iii) poverty, each expressed as a rate in the population and then indexed to 1987 values. 

Between 1996 and 2000, single mother caseloads fell by 53 percent. Over the same period, their 

employment rate increased by 10 percent, and their poverty rate fell by 20 percent. While a 

number of factors can explain these trends, including the growing generosity of the EITC and a 

growing economy, the preponderance of the research suggests that welfare reform played an 

important role as well (See Ziliak 2016 for a review of this literature).

Still, some observers worry that while welfare reform reduced overall poverty, at least initially, 

it may have increased extreme poverty and fostered a growing class of families neither working 

nor receiving cash welfare according to income survey data (e.g., Edin and Shaefer 2015). 

However, income-based surveys suffer from underreporting of welfare benefits, and in any 

case, consumption is likely a better measure of material wellbeing. Meyer and Sullivan (2008) 

find that after welfare reform, consumption increased (or at least did not decrease) among 

single mother families across the distribution, even for those in the bottom decile of 

consumption. Moreover, Meyer and Sullivan (2004) find that consumption of single mothers 

appears to have increased by more than consumption among single women without children 

and married women with children, groups that were less affected by welfare reform. This 

suggests that welfare reform served to improve material wellbeing, or at least did not reduce 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 48

it. These gains in material wellbeing have persisted, with Meyer and Sullivan (2012b) estimating 

that consumption-based poverty rates among single parent families fell from 28 percent in 

1990, to 23 percent in 1995, to 15 percent in 2000, and down to 9 percent in 2010.

One difficulty in determining the exact role that work requirements played in reducing 

dependency, increasing employment, and reducing poverty is that States generally 

implemented their package of reforms simultaneously. However, prior to the 1996 passage of 

PRWORA, States conducted experiments with a number of specific changes to their cash 

welfare programs. Bloom and Michalopoulos (2001) analyzed the results of 29 randomized 

controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in the 1980s and 1990s on the effects of various welfare 

reforms. The 20 RCTs that included work requirements overwhelmingly found that they 

substantially increased employment and earnings while reducing welfare spending.30 Morris et 

al. (2001) analyzed RCTs which tracked child outcomes and found that when programs 

required work but offered no additional financial incentives, children’s academic achievement 

was unaffected, but when work requirements were paired with additional financial incentives, 

child outcomes improved. The low marginal tax rates currently faced by nonworking families 

 

30 Families were not necessarily made financially better off since welfare benefits at the time were often reduced 

by a dollar for every additional dollar of earnings.

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

Employed during year Poverty AFDC/TANF receipt during year

Figure 12. Index of Percent of Female-Headed Families 

Employed, in Poverty and Receiving AFDC/TANF, 

1987–2013

Index (1987 = 1)

Sources: Gabe (2014) tabulations of administrative records, survey data; National Burea of Economic Research; CEA 

calculations.

Note: AFDC/TANF receipt, poverty, and employment are indexed to 1987 levels. Grey shaded regions denote a 

recession for at least four months of a given year.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 49

suggests that work requirements that increased their earnings would lead to significantly 

higher incomes, and potentially, improved child outcomes.31

The results from TANF and State experimentation in the preceding years suggests that 

attaching work requirements to welfare programs can reduce dependency, increase 

employment, and potentially improve child outcomes. Of course, the careful design of work 

requirements is crucial to maximize their success and to minimize the number of households 

who experience negative outcomes. Haskins (2017) notes that in recent years, TANF has served 

a lower portion of families in poverty, leaving some families disconnected from both 

employment and cash assistance, and that States spend a substantial share of TANF funds on 

activities unrelated to providing cash assistance or supporting work. This makes recent 

demonstration projects that implement work requirements in Medicaid and housing 

assistance programs, especially when evaluated with rigorous methods such as randomized 

controlled trials, particularly valuable in informing how to best expand work requirements to 

other programs.

6. Conclusion

Expanding work requirements, similar to those in place in TANF, to the three non-cash welfare

programs discussed here (Medicaid, SNAP and housing assistance) would affect the majority 

of program recipients and require major increases in the work effort of non-disabled workingage adults, potentially helping recipients and their families. We discuss three reasons for doing 

so: First, a dramatic reduction in material poverty over the past several decades coincided with

a substantial reduction in self-sufficiency of the non-disabled working-age population. This 

correlation suggests it may be time for a renewed focus on increasing employment and 

reducing dependency, with expanding work requirements in non-cash safety net programs 

playing a key role. Second, the current incentive structure in safety net programs already 

provides significant positive incentives to join the workforce; expanded work requirements 

would increase the incentive for individuals to work without exacerbating the high marginal 

tax rates faced by some current low-wage, part-time workers. Third, the evidence on welfare 

programs suggests that work-conditioned programs are uniquely able to both increase adult 

employment and improve child outcomes. Given the trends and evidence discussed here, 

along with a current economy in which labor markets are extremely tight, now is the ideal time 

to expand carefully designed work requirements to non-cash welfare programs.

 

31 Hamilton et al. (2001) also study a subset of the evaluations considered in Bloom and Michalopoulos (2001), 

similarly noting that welfare-to-work interventions increased employment and earnings while reducing welfare 

benefits. Some benefits were found for young children, while some negative effects were found for adolescents.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 50

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CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 59

Appendix A

This appendix presents estimates related to non-disabled working-age SNAP recipients, based 

on USDA SNAP Quality Control data. Table A1 replicates Table 5 in Section 2, except it uses the 

USDA data instead of the SIPP data. The shares of non-disabled working-age adults in each of 

the five categories we consider is very similar across datasets (although the numbers of 

recipients are higher based on USDA data). The work rates based on USDA data are somewhat 

lower than those based on the SIPP data. For example, 66 percent of non-disabled workingage adults do not work in a given month based on the USDA data, while 54 percent do not work 

based on the SIPP data. This difference appears largely attributable to a much higher 

proportion identifying as working at least 40 hours per week in the SIPP data than in the USDA 

data. Potential explanations could be underreporting of work in the USDA data based on fear 

of losing benefits, or misidentification of SNAP recipient adults in the SIPP data, such as 

cohabitating partners who are not part of the SNAP assistance unit.

Table A1. Percent of Non-Disabled Working-Age SNAP Recipients Working 

Various Weekly Average Hours during Month of Assistance, by Category, 2013

Recipients

Weekly hours of work

Percent of row group

Number

(Millions)

Share of 

Column 

Total 0 < 20 < 30 < 40

Non-disabled working-age adults without children

 Age 18-49 5.4 25% 77% 85% 92% 98%

 Age 50-64 3.3 15% 82% 89% 94% 98%

Non-disabled working-age adults with children

 Youngest child age 6-17 5.3 25% 60% 67% 75% 90%

 Youngest child age 1-5 6.0 28% 53% 61% 70% 88%

 Youngest child age under 1 1.5 7% 60% 66% 75% 87%

All non-disabled working-age adults 21.6 100% 66% 73% 81% 93%

Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Quality Control Data, 2013; CEA calculations.

Note: SNAP recipients based on USDA administrative data. “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to 

individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” is defined on the basis of a number of criteria, 

provided in technical documentation for the USDA survey. “With children” refers to adults who have at least one child under the age 

of 18 in the SNAP-assistance unit; “without children” refers to adults who live in households without any children under the age of 

18 in the SNAP-assistance unit.

We also note only modest changes in USDA estimates over time. Between 2013 and 2016, the 

percent of SNAP adults who were non-disabled and of working-age fell by 2.3 percentage 

points from 74.2 percent 71.9 percent (Figure A1). Over the same period, the percent of nondisabled working-age SNAP recipients who do not work decreased by 3.0 percentage points 

from 65.7 percent to 62.7 percent (based on CEA analysis of USDA SNAP Quality Control Data).
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 60

0

25

50

75

100

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Figure A1. Share of SNAP Adult Recipients Who are 

Working-Aged (18-64) and Non-Disabled, 2007-2016

Percent

Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Quality Control Data; CEA 

calcuations.

Note: “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all 

individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” is defined on the basis of a number of criteria, provided in technical 

documentation for the USDA survey. 
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 61

Appendix B

This appendix estimates the distribution of welfare recipients over their own age, further 

categorized by segments considered in Section 2. The figures in this appendix rely on the 

Current Population Survey–Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS–ASEC), whose data 

we pool from survey years 2015 through 2017 (based on welfare receipt during 2014 to 2016). 

The tables in Section 2 rely on the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). We use 

CPS–ASEC data for these figures because it allows for a larger sample size for examining the 

distribution of recipients over individual ages, especially important for the relatively smaller 

number of people receiving Federal housing assistance. Two key differences between CPS–

ASEC and SIPP data affect our estimates of program recipients. First, the CPS–ASEC asks 

respondents about welfare receipt at any point during the previous year, whereas the SIPP asks 

about monthly receipt. Second, the CPS–ASEC does not ask whether each individual of the 

household receives SNAP or housing assistance, whereas the SIPP does. Thus, for the CPS–

ASEC we are must assume that if program assistance is reported all members of that household 

receive that program assistance.

While the differences between the CPS–ASEC and SIPP could potentially have important effects 

on estimates of the number of recipients on each program, we show in Table B1 that this is 

generally not the case. Table B1 reports the number of respondents in each category identified 

in Section 2 across the CPS–ASEC (based on 2014-2016 welfare receipt) and SIPP (based on 

December 2013 welfare receipt). Estimates are largely similar.

Figures, B1, B2, and B3 show the estimated distribution of beneficiaries of Medicaid, SNAP and 

housing assistance, respectively. In each figure, the height of the bar represents the percent of 

all program recipients of a given age. The recipients of a given age are then color-coded based 

on their category.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 62

Table B1. Percent of Program Recipients by Category, SIPP versus CPS–ASEC

Adults 

(% of total recipients)

Children

(% total recipients)

Adults and children 

(% of total recipients)

SIPP CPS SIPP CPS SIPP CPS

Medicaid

 Adult age 18-49 w/o children 7% 11% 7% 11%

 Adult age 50-64 w/o children 3% 6% 3% 6%

 Youngest child 6-17 8% 11% 11% 11% 19% 22%

 Youngest child 1-5 8% 9% 13% 12% 22% 20%

 Youngest child under 1 3% 3% 4% 4% 7% 6%

 Other 18% 14% 25% 20% 43% 34%

 Total 47% 53% 53% 47% 100% 100%

SNAP

 Adult age 18-49 w/o children 9% 10% 9% 10%

 Adult age 50-64 w/o children 5% 7% 5% 7%

 Youngest child 6-17 11% 13% 14% 13% 24% 27%

 Youngest child 1-5 11% 13% 17% 17% 28% 30%

 Youngest child under 1 3% 3% 5% 5% 8% 8%

 Other 19% 16% 6% 2% 25% 18%

 Total 58% 63% 42% 37% 100% 100%

Housing

 Adult age 18-49 w/o children 12% 13% 12% 13%

 Adult age 50-64 w/o children 5% 8% 5% 8%

 Youngest child 6-17 10% 11% 13% 11% 23% 22%

 Youngest child 1-5 9% 10% 13% 14% 23% 24%

 Youngest child under 1 3% 2% 4% 4% 6% 6%

 Other 28% 24% 3% 2% 31% 27%

 Total 67% 68% 33% 32% 100% 100%

Sources: Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2014 Wave 1; Current Population Survey–Annual Social and Economic 

Supplement, 2015-2017; CEA calculations.

Note: In the SIPP, program recipients are individuals who received benefits in December 2013. In the CPS–ASEC, program recipients 

of SNAP and housing assistance are individuals who live in a household in which some member received benefits at some point 

throughout the year. Medicaid recipients in the CPS–ASEC are individuals covered by Medicaid at some point during the year. 

“Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 

and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security 

Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). If a child program recipient lives with at least one non-disabled working-age

adult recipient, then we assign the child to a category based on the age of the youngest child in their household (not necessarily the 

child’s own age). “Other” includes all disabled or aged adults who receive Medicaid coverage, and any Medicaid recipient children 

who live in a household with no non-disabled working-age adult recipients.
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 63

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Age of recipient

Disabled/aged adults & unaffected children Childless adult (18-49)

Childless adult (50-64) Youngest child 6-17

Youngest child 1-5 Youngest child under 1

Under 18 65 and over

80+

1-5

Aged

Figure B1. Medicaid Recipients by Age and Category, 2014–

2016

Sources: Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2015-2017; CEA calculations.

Note: We identify Medicaid recipients based on individual receipt of Medicaid coverage at some point during the year. 

“Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all 

individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental 

Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). If a child Medicaid recipient lives 

with at least one non-disabled working age adult who receives Medicaid, we assign the child to a category based on the 

age of the youngest child in their household (not necessarily the child’s own age). “Unaffected children” are children who 

live in a household with no non-disabled working age Medicaid recipients.

1-5

Figu

Percent
CEA • Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs 64

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

Age of recipient

Disabled/aged adults & unaffected children Childless adult (18-49)

Childless adult (50-64) Youngest child 6-17

Youngest child 1-5 Youngest child under 1

80+

Figure B2. SNAP Recipients by Age and Category, 2014–2016

Sources: Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2015-2017; CEA calculations.

Note: We identify SNAP recipients based on household receipt of SNAP benefits at some point during the year. “Adult” 

refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65

and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social 

Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability benefits). If a child SNAP recipient lives with at least one non-disabled 

working age adult, we assign the child to a category based on the age of the youngest child in their household (not 

necessarily the child’s own age). “Unaffected children” are children who live in a household with no non-disabled working 

age adults.

Percent

Under 18 65 and over

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Age of recipient

Disabled/aged adults & unaffected children Childless adult (18-49)

Childless adult (50-64) Youngest child 6-17

Youngest child 1-5 Youngest child under 1

Under 18 65 and over

80+ 

(4.3%)

Under 1

Aged

Figure B3. Housing Assistance Recipients by Age and 

Category, 2014–2016

Percent

Sources: Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2015-2017; CEA calculations.

Note: We identify housing assistance recipients based on household receipt of public housing or other housing 

assistance at some point during the year. “Adult” refers to all individuals age 18 or over. “Working-age” refers to 

individuals age 18-64. “Aged” refers to all individuals age 65 and over. “Disabled” refers to all adult individuals who 

receive disability benefits (Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Veterans disability 

benefits). If a child housing assistance recipient lives with at least one non-disabled working age adult, we assign the 

child to a category based on the age of the youngest child in their household (not necessarily the child’s own age). 

“Unaffected children” are children who live in a household with no non-disabled working age adults.
ABOUT THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

The Council of Economic Advisers, an agency within the Executive Office of 

the President, is charged with offering the President objective economic 

advice on the formulation of both domestic and international economic 

policy. The Council bases its recommendations and analysis on economic 

research and empirical evidence, using the best data available to support 

the President in setting our nation's economic policy.

www.whitehouse.gov/cea 

July 2018