Edited by Arya Kumar, Rishi Chandra, Amelia Cantwell, and Owen Andrews
As of February 1st, 2026, new work requirements went into effect for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal initiative that helps nearly 42 million Americans purchase food. These restrictions, implemented as part of the Trump administration’s July 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are estimated to reduce enrollment in SNAP by over 2 million people in the coming decade. The bill also requires states to implement work requirements for Medicaid by the start of 2027. In most states, Medicaid, which provides health insurance for 83 million low-income Americans, did not previously require recipients to work. This rule change is estimated to reduce insurance coverage for about 5 million people over the next decade, restricting access to life-saving care for low-income Americans. However, these changes are not unprecedented: government officials have promoted work requirements for decades to limit welfare usage and encourage self-sufficiency. While this logic may seem reasonable, in practice, work requirements have tended to fail in alleviating poverty for vulnerable Americans.
While earlier SNAP regulations required able-bodied adults ages 18 to 55 (up from 49 after 2023) to work or participate in a work program for 80 hours per month to receive benefits, the upper age limit has now been extended to 65. Parents with a dependent child under 18 were previously exempt, but now they must meet the requirements if the child is over 14. Work requirements have also been extended to veterans, homeless people, and people under 24 who have recently aged out of foster care. Adults ages 18-64 receiving Medicaid must now also work 80 hours a month to receive benefits, though there are certain exceptions for people who are disabled, pregnant, or caretakers for a dependent under age 13.
The Trump administration argues that these measures are necessary to reduce fraud and overuse, thereby lowering program costs. However, the administration’s claims of widespread fraud are not supported: SNAP fraud was described as “rare” in a 2025 report, while Medicaid fraud occurs far more among healthcare providers than among recipients. Given the mixed evidence on the effectiveness of work requirements, Trump and previous administrations have tended to frame these rules in ethical terms. Welfare programs have often been idealized as “a hand up, not a handout” that should be designed to be as temporary as possible in order to reduce people’s dependence on government assistance. Instead of strengthening meaningful support systems for people in poverty, reform efforts focused on expanding work requirements have tended to punish them for their perceived moral failings.
Though much of the modern US welfare state emerged from the New Deal programs of the 1930s, work requirements have been gradually implemented over time. Starting in 1967, states were allowed to require participation in employment training programs to receive cash assistance benefits, and similar rules were implemented for food stamps in the 1970s. In the 1980s, both parties increasingly criticized existing welfare systems for cultivating government dependence, and states fought for more flexibility in implementing their own programs. These demands for reform culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which replaced the previous cash assistance program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), mandating work requirements and encouraging work in place of education or training programs. Work requirements were also institutionalized for food stamps, public housing assistance, and child care subsidies, though none were introduced for Medicaid until the first Trump administration.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle heralded the 1996 reforms as hugely successful in reducing welfare dependency and encouraging people to work for themselves. TANF caseloads plunged by 50 percent between 1996 and 2011, and the Clinton administration celebrated that 1.2 million welfare recipients went to work in 1999 and that most retained their jobs after 3 months. Studies also suggest that child poverty rates declined overall in the years following this reform, seemingly confirming that mandating work was an effective strategy.
On the other hand, critics have argued that these benefits are overstated, suggesting that improvements in employment and poverty rates were driven by the overall economic boom of the late 1990s rather than by work requirements specifically and that some of these gains were undone as child poverty rose in the early 2000s. Recent research suggests that work requirements for SNAP reduce program participation but have little impact on employment rates. Around 30% of people who left TANF following the 1996 reforms did not find work and saw their financial conditions deteriorate, while those who did find work increased their income only slightly, barely exceeding the losses from TANF benefits. While economic growth led to overall declines in eligibility rates in TANF’s early years, participation in the program has continued to decline even among those who remain eligible, with the percentage of families in poverty also receiving TANF dropping from 68% in 1996 to 21% in 2023. This suggests a growing disconnect between welfare programs and the communities they intend to serve.
This disparity is largely driven by the poor quality of jobs available to low-income Americans. Work requirements often pressure people to accept any available job to maintain benefits, leaving them stuck in precarious roles that offer little upward mobility. About two in five welfare recipients face multiple barriers to getting jobs, such as low education or disconnection from the labor market, as well as health conditions that hinder work but aren’t severe enough to qualify for exemptions. The limited range of jobs available to these people often does not provide the money or skills needed to access better positions. Furthermore, workers participating in safety net programs are more likely than non-participants to have unpredictable, fluctuating hours outside their control, with over 40% receiving no more than a week’s notice about their schedules and little influence over their total hours. This puts them at risk of falling below mandated work levels and losing access to benefits. The instability of these roles also tends to increase stress and health problems, contributing to a lower quality of life.
The complicated patchwork of work-requirement rules between states also creates administrative burdens that hinder people from obtaining the support they need. While there are a variety of exemptions from work requirements for people who are, for some reason, unable to work, some people inevitably fall through the cracks. They are pushed off welfare despite not being able to support themselves. Even those who can work often struggle to learn about benefits and eligibility, file paperwork, or attend meetings, which can often result in their assistance being suspended. Many of those who rely most heavily on welfare face technological barriers, mental health challenges, or physical or intellectual disabilities that make the system harder to navigate.
This is not to argue that welfare dependency or fraud are imaginary problems. Improper payments across federal government programs reached $247 billion in fiscal year 2022, though the vast majority of these mispayments were due to administrative errors rather than intentional deception. Yes, it is preferable for people to work and make an income to support themselves rather than rely solely on government support. However, concerns about fraud have been exaggerated and weaponized against poor people, insinuating that welfare recipients only take on jobs because they are forced to. In reality, the vast majority of people receiving welfare already try to find some sort of work, and those who cannot are usually limited by health conditions or unpaid care responsibilities. Implementing work requirements without supplementary measures to make work more accessible tends to discourage people from reaching essential support and does not help them escape poverty.
The US welfare system is undeniably in need of reform. Its programs are sprawling, confusing, and expensive, and they still fail to reach many in need. Policymakers have a responsibility to update this system to fit our modern age in order to uplift struggling communities while responsibly managing our country’s resources. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s actions to limit access to benefits rely on demeaning stereotypes about the poor and serve to ostracize rather than support them. This doesn’t mean the solution is simply to do away with all work requirements or roll back the 1990s welfare reforms. Rather, it suggests we recognize that policy rooted in moral proclamations is easier to implement in theory than in practice. Future reforms should help people access the resources and opportunities they need to lift themselves out of poverty, rather than punish them for circumstances often beyond their control.