Welfare & Entitlements News

The Daily Signal covers welfare and entitlements with conservative reporting on SNAP and food stamp programs, Medicaid expansion, work requirement battles, poverty reduction strategies, fraud prevention, and the ongoing debate between compassionate reform and perpetual government dependency.
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    • Opinion

    Red States Should Lead Way in Reforming Anti-Marriage Welfare Policies

    When conservatives lament the many ways in which the U.S. welfare system discourages marriage and family formation, it’s usually large-scale federal welfare programs such as public housing or the Earned Income Tax Credit that come to mind.  Most people probably would not think that state-based welfare programs also contribute to anti-marriage bias, but as our…
    Benjamin Paris
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    • Opinion

    How Expansive Welfare Benefits Can Make Being on Dole More Lucrative Than Working

    Kids love Santa. They don’t have to work for the stuff on their Christmas lists. He just gives it to them. In many states, gratuitous welfare benefits have made that childhood fantasy an adult reality. Professor Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago and I have found that some families can receive the annualized equivalent of…
    EJ Antoni
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    • Opinion

    Welfare Programs Based on Race and Gender Identity Demonstrate Where Institutional Wokeness Is Going

    What happens in Oakland doesn’t stay in Oakland. In 2021, the California city announced a universal basic income program created specifically for so-called BIPOC, or black, Indigenous, and people of color. It was set to give $500 a month to 600 low-income families for 18 months in partnership with a nonprofit organization. Shortly after it…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • News

    ‘Allows Our Borders to Remain Open’: Biden Administration Makes It Easier for Illegal Migrants on Welfare to Stay

    The Department of Homeland Security will make it easier for certain illegal migrants benefiting from certain welfare programs to stay in the country beginning Dec. 23. The “Public Charge” rule, which applies to noncitizens “likely at any time to become a public charge,” will no longer consider certain nutrition, health, and housing benefits for inadmissibility, according to…
    Jennie Taer
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    • Opinion

    Biggest Means-Tested Welfare Increase in US History Would Hurt, Not Help, Poor

    Democrats are proposing the largest increase in means-tested welfare in U.S. history by far. The latest Democrat tax-and-spend reconciliation bill (also known as the Build Back Better bill), would increase means-tested welfare spending by $756 billion over the next five years. In addition, the Biden administration has used administrative action to increase permanently food stamp…
    Robert Rector
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    • Opinion

    Democrats’ Destructive Spending Spree Would Turn America Into a European Social Welfare State

    Capitol Hill staffers are working around the clock to hammer into some twisted shape a spending bill that warring factions of the Democratic Party will support in their goal to transform America. The cradle-to-grave subsidies in the 2,448-page, $3.5 trillion spending bill that Democrats in Congress are crafting will create a welfare trap for millions…
    Grace-Marie Turner
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    • Opinion

    Why Is There So Little Outrage at All of the Corporate Welfare?

    Today’s politicians want to spend more on everything: Amtrak subsidies, sports stadium subsidies, green energy subsidies, even fossil fuel subsidies. President Joe Biden says the handouts will “put more money in your pocket.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims they will “protect the planet for the children.” They might. But a disproportionate amount of the money…
    John Stossel
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    • News

    FCC Commissioner Targets Corporate Welfare for Big Tech

    Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr says the agency should require Big Tech to fund internet infrastructure, following the introduction last week of a bill requiring the FCC to consider collecting contributions from technology companies. The bill—introduced July 21 by Senate Republicans Roger Wicker, Todd Young, and Shelley Moore Capito—instructs the Federal Communications Commission to…
    Ailan Evans
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    • Opinion

    Even in a Pandemic, Welfare for the Rich Thrives

    Congress passed the $2.2 trillion HEROES Act. House Democrats said it gives money to “governments who desperately need funds.” But it also gives lots of money to people who don’t need funds. Maryland, which even The Washington Post admits is “flush with cash,” got enough extra money to pass a budget that “hands bonuses to…
    John Stossel
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    • News

    Better Foster Care System Would Cut ‘Economic Inequity,’ Child Welfare Veteran Says

    The nation would reduce “economic inequity” and “race inequity” if the federal government focused more on helping foster care children find a permanent family and create a life where they don’t rely on the government, a former health and human services official in the Trump administration says. “We would move kids so they’re not spending…
    Steven Hall
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    • Opinion

    Call Transportation Bailouts What They Are: More Welfare for Labor Unions

    Congress is moving full steam ahead on ramming through a bloated, wasteful, and debt-exploding $1.9 trillion legislative package. Although it’s supposedly justified by the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the spending is designed to appease progressive ideological causes and politically connected interest groups. A prime example is the $57.5 billion currently earmarked for various parts of…
    David Ditch
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    • Opinion

    How Trump Restored the Principles of Welfare Reform and Lifted Americans Out of Poverty

    This article is an excerpt from the “2020 Mandate for Leadership: A Clear Vision for the Next Administration.” It looks back at policy decisions made by the Trump administration over the past four years. You can purchase your copy of “Mandate 2020” here. For decades, conservative policymakers have worked to reform welfare—so it’s a temporary safety-net,…
    Leslie Ford
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    • Opinion

    Cuccinelli Schools Media on Immigration, Welfare, and Freedom

    The left-wing media are having a field day distorting acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli’s comments regarding the famous poem emblazoned on the base of the State of Liberty. Discussing the Trump administration’s new “public charge” rule, an NPR host asked Cuccinelli whether the poem’s words “give me your tired, your poor”…
    Star Parker
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    • News

    New Rule Could Deny Green Cards, Visas to Immigrants Who Use Welfare Programs

    Federal officials will consider an immigrant’s use of welfare benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid as a negative factor in deciding on the eligibility of the immigrant’s permanent legal residency or on a temporary visa.  “It will also help promote immigrant success in the United States as they seek opportunity here,” Ken Cuccinelli, acting…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Why Welfare Hasn’t Cured Poverty

    When President Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty in the 1960s, he pledged to eliminate poverty in America. More than five decades, several welfare programs, and $25 trillion later, the welfare system has utterly failed the poor. The poverty rate remains mostly unchanged, and tens of millions of Americans are dependent on government assistance….
    Genevieve Wood
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    • Opinion

    USDA Is Funneling ‘Trade Aid’ to the Agriculture Sector. It’s Old-Fashioned Corporate Welfare.

    There is renewed hope for trade talks with China—a welcome development for the American economy. But the damage caused by the fight continues. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is using the situation as an excuse to funnel more taxpayer money to the agricultural industry. It is spending $16 billion on trade aid for farmers affected…
    Daren Bakst
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    • Opinion

    David McCullough’s ‘The Pioneers’ Is a Rebuke to Our Entitlement Mentality

    In a country preoccupied with presidential candidates preaching extreme liberalism and even unabashed socialism comes America’s greatest living historian, David McCullough, with a new and needed book. It’s called “The Pioneers,” and the subtitle is its theme: “The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West” (Simon & Schuster). Nowadays, while students…
    Cal Thomas
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    • Opinion

    National School Lunch Program Has Morphed Into Massive, Wasteful Entitlement Program

    The National School Lunch Program has changed dramatically since it began in 1946. What started as a grant program to help poor students and those with special needs has morphed into a massive entitlement offering meals to 30 million students every year—equivalent to nearly 55% of all children enrolled in public and private schools. And…
    Jonathan Butcher
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    • News

    ‘Self-Sufficiency, Not a Sinkhole’: JOBS Act Updates Work Requirements for Welfare Recipients

    Republicans in the House and Senate are making another legislative push to enforce work requirements for able-bodied adults on welfare. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday announced the Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits and Services Act. The JOBS Act comes as the Trump administration makes a…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    What Liberals Forget: Before the Welfare State, Americans Took Care of Each Other

    Over the weekend, Democratic fresh face and socialist darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spoke at the South by Southwest conference. While sitting amidst the enormous bounty provided by capitalism—top-notch electronic equipment, a massive crowd of paid ticket holders—AOC tore into capitalism. She called the system that has raised 80 percent of the globe from extreme…
    Ben Shapiro
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