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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  • news

    How These States Ensure Welfare Dollars Aren’t Used for Alcohol, Lottery Tickets
    A new state law in Maine went into effect last month prohibiting welfare recipients from purchasing items like alcohol, lottery tickets, and tattoos with their welfare funds. Alongside Kansas, Maine has been one of the leading states reforming welfare, and nearly half of the states have already taken action. Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican,…
    Melissa Quinn
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  • opinion

    America’s Next President Must Fix Autopilot Entitlement Spending
    A recent report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget raises concerns that proposals by this year’s presidential candidates would further increase the national debt. America’s major entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Social Security—are driving the nation’s greatest fiscal challenge, and yet Americans have heard very little about how the candidates will address these…
    Christian Chelak | Romina Boccia
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  • news

    House Bill Would Strengthen Welfare Work Requirement
    Rep. Jim Jordan introduced a bill Thursday that would reform food stamps. “Welfare programs are meant to be a temporary safety net, but they have become a permanent way of life for millions of Americans,” Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a statement. “Instead of giving impoverished families and individuals a helping hand, the current system penalizes positive…
    Faith Vander Voort
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  • news

    Congress Examines Welfare Reform: ‘The Most Effective Anti-Poverty Program Is a Job’
    For the first time in a decade, the House Ways and Means Committee held a full committee hearing on welfare reform, addressing how to get low-income Americans out of poverty. “Today’s hearing is about people, and right now there are more than 46 million people in our nation who are living in poverty,” Committee Chairman…
    Leah Jessen
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  • news

    How Maine’s Time Limit on Welfare Pushed One Woman to Pull Herself Out of Poverty
    Jill Rothrock knows the moment she hit rock bottom. It was 2007, and Rothrock went into the pharmacy in Bucksport, Maine, to pick up a prescription for Vicodin that she had called in herself. Her two daughters were in the car, and after she had picked up the pills, Rothrock got back into a car…
    Melissa Quinn
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  • news

    Meet the Woman Who Oversaw Maine’s Welfare Reform
    For Mary Mayhew, reforming the state’s welfare system hasn’t been easy. But the impact those reforms have had on Maine residents makes it all worth it. Since joining Gov. Paul LePage’s administration in 2011, Mayhew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and LePage, a Republican, have implemented changes to Temporary Assistance…
    Melissa Quinn
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  • opinion

    Maine’s Successful Welfare Reform and Why It Worked
    States are often the best laboratories for testing out what public policies will make life better for their citizens. Maine’s experiment with welfare reform is a great example. When Gov. Paul LePage, only the second Republican governor of Maine in the past 50 years, came into office, one in three people living in the state was…
    Genevieve Wood
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  • news

    Welfare System Is ‘Anti-Work,’ Researchers Say
    The war on poverty is a war on work, the authors of a new book that criticizes the nation’s welfare system assert. Phil Harvey, chief sponsor of the DKT Liberty Project, and Lisa Conyers, a policy analyst for the project, conducted a nationwide study of anti-poverty programs for their book, “The Human Cost of Welfare:…
    Mariana Barillas
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  • news

    Terrorists Won’t Be Eligible for Welfare Under This Congressman’s Plan
    A congressman plans to introduce legislation Monday that would block terrorists from receiving food stamps. “I am shocked that our current law does not prevent the criminals who have been convicted of plotting and carrying out acts of terrorism against innocent Americans from getting welfare benefits,” Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, said in a statement. Poliquin’s…
    Leah Jessen
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  • news

    Another State Looks to Drug-Test Welfare Recipients
    A bill that would require drug tests for welfare recipients is slated to be introduced by two Republican lawmakers in South Dakota. State Rep. Lynne DiSanto, R-Rapid City, and state Sen. Betty Olson, R-Prairie City, are putting together the bill, which they expected to introduce this week. “The taxpayer-supported welfare system provides assistance to those in need….
    Leah Jessen
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  • news

    Conservatives Ponder Rerun of Legislative Play to Push Welfare Reform
    Conservatives are considering whether to redeploy a fast-track process known as reconciliation to advance welfare reform and other policy goals in 2016. They ran that legislative play late last year to send a bill repealing the Affordable Care Act to President Obama’s desk. Republicans may use reconciliation to win more reforms of welfare, said Rep….
    Philip Wegmann
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  • opinion

    End Wind Welfare
    Unnecessary government subsidies promote inefficiency, limit competition, and cost taxpayers more than they get in return. A prime example is the wind energy Production Tax Credit, or PTC. While this wasteful tax credit is currently expired, President Barack Obama wants to revive the PTC and make it a central component of his harmful “Clean Power…
    Rep. Kenny Marchant
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  • news

    Maine Doubles Down on Welfare Reform Despite Media Backlash
    Mary Mayhew, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services, knows her politics aren’t always popular. “I can’t stress enough what an attack campaign it has been from the media for four and a half years,” Mayhew said Thursday at an anti-poverty forum in Washington, D.C., hosted by The Heritage Foundation. Then there are the…
    Madaline Donnelly
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  • news

    How Michigan’s Welfare Population Declined by 70% in 4 Years
    Since Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder assumed office, the number of welfare recipients in the state has declined by a staggering 70 percent, according to a news report. A total of 64,492 individuals received cash assistance from the state this past August, down from 227,490 in 2011. Snyder, a Republican, took office in January 2011 and was re-elected in November…
    Sara Jones
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  • opinion

    Many Who Are Trapped on Welfare Don’t Apply for Jobs
    There are jobs are out there, according to data released Nov. 12 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The question is, who wants them? The rate of available job openings in the private sector—as a percent of all private-sector jobs—rose in September to its second highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting…
    Patrick Tyrrell
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  • news

    New Food Stamp Bills in Wisconsin Aim to Curtail Welfare Fraud and Abuse
    As part of continued efforts by Gov. Scott Walker and legislators, welfare fraud and abuse legislation will be put to a vote on Tuesday in Wisconsin. A series of four bills, three of which target abuse of Wisconsin’s food stamp program, are expected to pass. The legislation (Wisconsin Assembly Bills 222, 200, and 188) would require…
    Leah Jessen
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  • news

    Jeff Flake Explains Why Republicans Want Entitlement Reform in Debt, Spending Deal
    Congress has until November 3 to raise the debt limit so the government can borrow to pay its bills and avoid the risk of defaulting on its obligations.  Meanwhile, government funding expires on Dec. 11. Today, multiple media outlets reported that House and Senate leaders are negotiating a two-year budget agreement that would raise the…
    Josh Siegel
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  • opinion

    US Spends Far More on Social Welfare Than Most European Nations
    The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual poverty report. Conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. has a small social welfare system and far more poverty compared with other affluent nations. But noted liberal scholars Irwin Garfinkel, Lee Rainwater, and Timothy Smeeding challenge such simplistic ideas in their book “Wealth and Welfare States: Is America…
    Robert Rector
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  • news

    Study: Half of Immigrant Households Used at Least One Welfare Program
    The majority of immigrants in the U.S. receive some form of government welfare, significantly outpacing native-born Americans who use benefit programs, according to a study released Wednesday. The Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit organization that advocates for decreased immigration, reported that 51 percent of immigrant households used at least one welfare program in 2012…
    Natalie Johnson
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  • opinion

    What’s Driving the Rapid Growth of Welfare Spending
    The fastest growing category in many state budgets? It’s not education. It’s not infrastructure. It’s welfare spending. Costing more than $1 trillion per year, the nation’s current welfare system is enormous, but much of this spending is counterproductive. Today’s welfare programs undermine work and marriage, leading to a broadening pattern of intergenerational dependence and self-defeating…
    Paul Winfree
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