The federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system helps many people who have lost their jobs by temporarily replacing part of their wages. (See “Policy Basics: Unemployment Insurance.”) Under...

Our “Unwinding Watch” will highlight key developments as states resume determinations on people’s Medicaid eligibility. Previously, the pandemic-related “continuous coverage” requirement...

Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty in every state.  Without Social Security, 21.7 million more Americans would be poor.

The debt ceiling agreement would put almost 750,000 older adults aged 50-54 at risk of losing food assistance through an expansion of the existing, failed SNAP work-reporting requirement.

The agreement ratchets up the ineffective federal work requirements but will have a more modest impact than the House-passed bill.

The agreement puts hundreds of thousands of older adults aged 50-54 at risk of losing food assistance.

These cuts defy science and are shortsighted given the long-term health benefits of sound nutrition during these life stages.

Various laws, regulations, and guidance that federal policymakers put in place since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic have expanded access to testing, vaccination, and treatment for the virus. This fact sheet summarizes these provisions and explains how the federal government, the states, and private health care providers can implement them so that all people can get the care they need.

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this morning at this important hearing. I am Samantha Jacoby, Senior Tax...

If any programs are protected from cuts, the unprotected programs would be hit much harder. Drag programs back and forth to see how big the resulting cuts would be to unprotected programs.

Substantial relief and recovery measures helped fuel an economic recovery beginning in May 2020 that made the deepest recession in the post-World War II era also the shortest.

The bill’s provisions could well mean that families face more barriers to finding and maintaining stable employment that can help them move out of poverty.

The President’s budget for fiscal year 2024 contains several important proposals to protect and strengthen Medicare. By modestly raising taxes on high-income people and reducing drug prices, the budget shores up Medicare’s financing and lowers beneficiaries’ costs. The budget also contains additional proposals to make Medicare less costly and improve benefits.

HSAs overwhelmingly benefit high-income people and exacerbate racial and ethnic inequities.

Cash assistance to families with low incomes is critical both to help them stabilize their circumstances and to create conditions in which they can thrive. A new body of research compiled by Chapin...

Who Is Eligible, and for How Much?In the 2020 tax year, 25 million working families and individuals in every state received the EITC.When filing taxes for 2023 (due in April 2024), working families...

People’s access to health care and other basic supports should not hinge on whether they meet a work-reporting requirement or successfully navigate a complicated system to either report work hours or claim an exemption.

States had to meet several conditions to receive the federal funds, collectively called a Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirement, as well as a “continuous coverage” requirement that prohibits states from terminating most Medicaid enrollees’ coverage until after the public health emergency (PHE) ends, as determined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The bill would only raise the debt ceiling through early next year, creating a new opportunity for House Republicans to use the next deadline for another round of hostage-taking.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provisions in House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt-limit-and-cuts bill double down on TANF’s already expansive, rigid, and ineffective work...

Estimated Cuts in Discretionary Federal Aid Under McCarthy Bill ($ millions) Estimated cuts in FY24Estimated cuts over 10 years if applied to total discretionary spendingif defense and veteran's...

Some policymakers, such as those on the Republican Study Committee, have proposed to raise Social Security’s full retirement age to 70 and beyond.[1] Raising the retirement age cuts benefits for...

Speaker McCarthy hides the full House Republican fiscal agenda.

Without a doubt, adding work-reporting requirements to Medicaid would cause many low-income adults to lose coverage due to bureaucratic hurdles and would leave people without the health care they need, including life-saving medications, treatment to manage chronic conditions, and care for acute illnesses.

Much of SNAP’s success is due to its structure: it is designed so that everyone who is eligible can get benefits; it expands automatically to meet needs during tough times; and it focuses its benefits to the households with the least resources available to purchase groceries, assisting families with low incomes to obtain adequate nutrition, regardless of where they live.

Unemployment benefits provide critical support to jobless workers, their families and communities, and the U.S. economy. Yet today, the UI system is alarmingly unprepared for the next recession....

Social Security can pay full benefits for 11 more years but then faces a significant, though manageable, funding shortfall.

Eighty-seven years after President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, Social Security remains one of the nation’s most successful, effective, and popular...

The trust funds are invested in Treasury securities that are just as sound as all other U.S. government securities, held by investors around the globe and regarded as being among the world’s safest investments.