Researchers Say Evidence is Clear: Work Requirements Aren’t Effective
A panel of safety net researchers agreed recently that the data from studies of work requirements on programs such as Medicaid and SNAP point to an inescapable conclusion: work requirements are not effective.
The comments came at a webinar, Work Requirements and Safety Net Coverage, hosted by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on May 28. The session provided an overview of the research literature on work requirements as the Senate begins to take up a House-passed bill that would institute federal work requirements for Medicaid recipients for the first time and require additional SNAP beneficiaries to meet work requirements as well.
“I think the preponderance of the evidence here shows that work requirements don’t kind of achieve their stated goals. They are largely ineffective. And a growing body of work is starting to show that they’re inefficient as well,” said Chima Ndumele, associate professor of Health Policy at Yale University. “It’s not entirely clear that there’s any upside here anymore, and I believe that it’s part of our job to let that be known to policymakers.”
On Medicaid, Michael Karpman, a principal research associate, Health Policy Division, at the Urban Institute, said that only two states have implemented work requirements in recent years and both have struggled to show positive dividends.
In Arkansas, widespread administrative and technical issues led to 18,000 Medicaid recipients being dropped from the state’s rolls. And in Georgia, which has the only active work requirements program at the moment, studies have shown that in the first 18 months of the program, 6,500 participants had enrolled, approximately 75% fewer than the state had estimated.
Karpman said the new mandates, which would require non-disabled Medicaid recipients ages 19 to 64 to meet an 80-hour-per-month work requirement, would impact about 15 million people. An analysis of a 2023 bill that had milder work requirement provisions than the one just passed by the House predicted 6 million people would lose Medicaid benefits as a result.
On SNAP, the legislation passed by the House would raise the work requirement to age 65 and also extend it to parents without children younger than age 7. The bill also would limit the ability to waive work requirements in areas with unemployment rates significantly above the national average. Estimates indicate the changes could result in as many as 3.2 million adults losing benefits in a typical month,
Chloe East, associate professor of Economics at the University of Colorado-Denver, said recent research she has conducted found that SNAP recipients are no more less likely to seek work opportunities than non-recipients.
“Lots of people who receive SNAP benefits face employment challenges through no fault of their own,” East said. “What we show really clearly is that people who are able to work turn to SNAP when they are going through a tough economic time. But that doesn’t mean SNAP is causing them to work less. Those people who got SNAP are better off in the long run and working more in the long run.”
All of the panelists underlined the administrative burden of implementing work requirements, particularly for aid recipients who may live in areas without easy internet access, as well as the economic impact on state and local areas when large numbers of people lose benefits.
Concerns were also raised that work requirements could raise the income levels of recipients beyond the range eligible for Medicaid—but not high enough to be able to afford private or employer-provided insurance.
“It is a real and legitimate concern that work requirements may inadvertently, in some ways, push people off the program, but leave them in a worse position,” said Ndumele.
The trio of researchers emphasized that is very rare for there to be such unanimity among analysts when it comes to assessing the impact of a potential policy.
“The research is incredibly clear across many different studies, many different data sets, many different statistical methods, many different researchers, that these work requirements do not increase employment, and what they do instead is decrease people’s participation in these programs,” said East.
“I just think that’s a really important point, because there are honestly not that many cases where us academics have reached such a clear conclusion on a research question But I think this is one where we really do have a very clear conclusion.”