Republicans push work requirements that don't work

After losing by double-digits in the April elections in Wisconsin, Republicans in Wisconsin and nationwide think there is something out of that vote that they could use to their advantage.

Imagine thinking this is controversial when these were the results in the single most evenly divided state last month… https://t.co/HNGRRFltEh pic.twitter.com/RsJ3JVDTFA

— Chris Olmstead (@ct_olmstead) May 19, 2023

Let's remember that this was an cynical advisory referendum put up by Wisconsin Republicans in the state Legislature, put on the ballot with the sole purpose of pumping up dumb white people to vote for GOP "Justice" candidate Dan KeLLy (didn't quite work, did it?). And it had no force of law in a state where programs such as Medicaid and unemployment benefits already have work requirements.

But national Republicans likely took notice of what Wisconsin voters said about this theory, and given that GOP budget cuts aren't something that Real Americans are in favor of, DC GOPs are using "work requirement" as a central message on their budget talks.

🚨NEWS — MCCARTHY DIGS IN — @SpeakerMcCarthy says the debt limit deal MUST include something on work requirements. He said it’s a red line for him.

Meeting at the White House at 3p today.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 16, 2023

Former UW Professor Donald Moynihan's latest post in his Substack account looks at these types of work requirements, as we have a lot of data from years of having these requirements in place at the state and federal levels for many public assistance programs. I'm also going to include links to the reports that Moynihan references so you can check them out for yourselves.

New, from me: Work requirements are sort of the like Blockbuster. Popular in the 1990s, but pretty outdated today.

Work requirements don't work. So why are Republicans making them a key sticking point in the fight over the debt ceiling. https://t.co/foK8lzy6VU pic.twitter.com/fZEdVdM8PN

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) May 18, 2023

Why don’t work requirements have much of a positive effect? First, as the Urban Institute points out: “Most Medicaid and SNAP recipients are already working, could qualify for an exemption, or face barriers to employment.” (Exemptions are tied to disability, and some of those barriers reflect a changing labor market where low-wage workers do not control their work schedules, making it difficult for them to control hours worked in a month).

Second, there are already strong incentives to work. Since welfare reform in the 1990s the US increasingly revamped the safety net to reward work by increasing the value of tax credits like the EITC and the Child Tax Credit.

Third, bad assumptions underpin the push for work requirements. Like the idea that if people get Medicaid, they won’t work. But think about it for a moment. Would you really stop working if you got health insurance? As my former University of Wisconsin-Madison colleague Tim Smeeding would often say: you can’t eat health insurance. In other words, having some basic coverage might provide protection against catastrophic health risks, but it doesn’t do much to make you materially better off in other ways. To eat, you still need to work.

Professor Moynihan adds that in our current jobs market, where we already have low unemployment and rising wages, it is especially absurd to put in "work requirements", as it is chasing a problem that doesn't exist.

Let me caveat this a little bit. Work requirements are especially unlikely to provide value in a white-hot labor market where there are already strong incentives to work. There is some evidence that work requirements increased labor force participation for people on the cash welfare program TANF in the short run, but not the long run, and did little to nothing for SNAP and Medicaid. The TANF effects are also a mixed bag, since kids end up spending less time with their parents who were pushed into the labor market, and were exposed to lower quality care (e.g. fewer reading opportunities) as a result. In other words, if you look at effects beyond labor force participation, you become more leery about compelling single moms to work.

Want better labor force participation? Invest in human capital. Giving families basics like food and health coverage moves them from a place of scarcity, making them more likely to be prosperous in the long-run. As the Urban Institute notes:

If the goal of work requirements is to increase employment, expanding access to Medicaid itself is likely to be a better way to reach that goal. Adults who gained Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act reported that improved access to health care was critical for their health as well as current and future employment. Ultimately, work requirements in Medicaid would do little or nothing to encourage people to work but can cause significant harm to their health.

So if Robbin' Vos and the rest of the WisGOPs in the Legislature want to get THOSE PEOPLE (whoever they are) off the sidelines and staying in the work force, expanding Medicaid in Wisconsin would be a great way to do that, since it is less likely to tie health insurance to someone's job, and keeps them healthier and more available to work.

But then that would give lower-income people more choices, make them more likely to command higher wages, and less likely to be a destitute scapegoat to misdirect the anger of mediocre white people. And we can't have that in WisGOP World, now can we?

It also destroys another theme that Republicans of my youth used to give, as now it is the GOP that is the party of big government, red tape, and inefficient governance. And this push to impose paperwork intended to screw over "work requirements" on lower-income Americans is merely the latest example of this.