Three Ways Welfare Reform Failed on Conservative Grounds

by in Poverty Comments Off on Three Ways Welfare Reform Failed on Conservative Grounds

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of welfare reform, a law that profoundly changed the nature of public assistance in America. While its liberal critics worst predictions may not have come true, the reform’s legacy has nonetheless diminished after decades of careful study. There are even good reasons for conservatives to feel ambivalent. On the one hand, welfare reform eliminated an entitlement (AFDC) and replaced it with TANF, a block grant to states that added work requirements to cash welfare and caused caseloads to plummet. It…

Gary Johnson on Race and Poverty: ‘My Head’s Been in the Sand’

by in Campaign 2016, Libertarianism, Poverty, Racial Matters Comments Off on Gary Johnson on Race and Poverty: ‘My Head’s Been in the Sand’

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has been making a heavy play for left-leaning voters in his second run for the White House. On Wednesday, he turned that effort up a notch when asked about racial issues, a subject that has long been a difficult one for libertarians given their tendency to support almost no role for the federal government in ending private racial discrimination. Asked by a questioner during a televised town hall discussion about his thoughts concerning the “Black Lives Matter movement,” the former…

Big Supermarkets Join Hands With Food Police to Nudge SNAP Recipients

by in Poverty, Regulation Comments Off on Big Supermarkets Join Hands With Food Police to Nudge SNAP Recipients

Can you socially engineer a foodie? The latest case of Spending Paternalism involves SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps). Under SNAP, eligible households receive an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card that gets reloaded with money once a month to spend on food and groceries. There are already myriad rules and restrictions about what SNAP benefits can be spent on, built directly into the card. While many of the country’s poor would clearly prefer cash, buying and selling an EBT card is illegal. Punishments vary by…

The Decline of the Common Good Produced the Rise of Trump

by in Campaign 2016, Metapolitics, Poverty, Racial Matters Comments Off on The Decline of the Common Good Produced the Rise of Trump

If one wants to understand the rise of Donald Trump, it’s useful to consider two narratives. The first narrative goes like this: The fortunes of the white working class have been waning for decades. Real median wages for people without a college degree are lower today than they were forty years ago. Income inequality is now back to where it was during the Gilded Age. Meanwhile, trust and social cohesion have plummeted. As each new technological advance leaves low-skilled workers out in the cold and…

Should Cities Force Homeless People Off the Streets?

by in Poverty Comments Off on Should Cities Force Homeless People Off the Streets?

After a few unusually warm weeks, freezing winter weather is once again the norm across the country. It’s an annoyance for those of us with residences outside of the Sun Belt but for people who are homeless in those regions, cold weather can literally be deadly. In light of that fact, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that he’s signed an executive order telling police and social service agencies to force homeless people into shelters. The move recalls a late 90s policy of New…