Opinion: The Welfare Debate Stalling the Debt Talks
“The rhetoric for and against the Republican proposal is predictable. What are the facts? There’s been a lot of academic research on the effects of work requirements. My conclusion from reading some of it is that in certain cases, work requirements have increased employment, as congressional Republicans hope. But the cost is high. Among the victims are people who can’t manage the paperwork to stay on the rolls and people who have to put in so many hours to qualify that the benefits per hour wind up being well below the minimum wage.”