The Republican Obsession With ‘Work Requirements’ Is Telling

Work requirements for federal assistance programs do not, well, work.

“Stable employment among recipients subject to work requirements proved the exception, not the norm,” according to a 2016 review of the evidence on work requirements for safety-net programs by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “The large majority of individuals subject to work requirements remained poor, and some became poorer.”

In 2018, Arkansas imposed a work requirement on Medicaid beneficiaries on the theory that it would increase labor force participation in the state. It didn’t. Instead, nearly 17,000 low-income Arkansans lost their health insurance, according a special report in The New England Journal of Medicine. And in a 2021 study of state work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, researchers at the Urban Institute found “no effect” on employment for recipients. The main result, once again, was to reduce enrollment.