Congress must ensure that able-bodied working-age Americans stop abusing the welfare system, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and three other leaders of the Trump administration.
Kennedy, along with Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, wrote a Wednesday opinion column in The New York Times that said the country's welfare programs should focus on "the truly needy" – seniors, individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, and low-income families with children.
The four Trump administration officials wrote that able-bodied adults receiving benefits should work, participate in job training, or volunteer in their communities at least 20 hours a week with limited exceptions for good cause, such as caring for young children and health issues.
"For able-bodied adults, welfare should be a short-term hand-up, not a lifetime handout," they wrote.
"For many, welfare is no longer a lifeline to self-sufficiency but a lifelong trap of dependency."
The officials wrote they support GOP lawmakers' new or revised work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps in the current reconciliation package.
"In recent years, though, these welfare programs have deviated from their original mission both by drift and by design," the administration officials wrote. "Millions of able-bodied adults have been added to the rolls in the past decade, primarily as a result of Medicaid expansion. Many of these recipients are working-age individuals without children who might remain on welfare for years. Some of them do not work at all or they work inconsistently throughout the year.
"The increased share of welfare spending dedicated to able-bodied working-age adults distracts from what should be the focus of these programs: the truly needy."
The authors cited a American Enterprise Institute economist's recent analysis of December 2022 data that discovered just 44% of able-bodied, working-age Medicaid beneficiaries without dependents worked at least 80 hours in that month.
The officials also wrote that 60%-80% of all Americans support work requirements in Medicaid.
"Even Joe Biden as a senator supported work requirements for welfare," they said.
Then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich worked to enact bipartisan welfare reform with a work requirement in 1996, Kennedy, Oz, Rollins, and Turner added.
"The results were astounding," they wrote. "As early as 1997, economists attributed a measurable increase in the national labor force participation rate and a decrease in dependency to welfare reform.
"That reform — combined with a strong economy and expanded tax credits for low-income workers — led to a steady decrease in rates of child poverty in the late 1990s. Today, the share of kids living in poverty is a quarter lower than it was in 1996.
"The 1996 welfare reform was so successful that Barack Obama, when he ran for president in 2008, admitted that he had been wrong about it."
The four authors insisted their demand is "is not just about money."
"Work also provides purpose and dignity. It strengthens families and communities as it gives new life to start-ups and growing businesses," they said. "It provides an example to our next generation. And studies have shown that work can improve physical and mental health.
"Work requirements will also give new life to America's welfare programs, which are breaking under the weight of misplaced priorities. Our policy is reasonable and will protect welfare for the truly needy while improving the trajectory of millions of families — and of our federal government."