Poverty

Since the Trump Administration issued new rules last year expanding short-term health plans, which are exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) benefit standards and protections for people with pre-existing conditions, a dozen states have strengthened their own limits and consumer protections for short-term plans. Others should follow suit.

States should protect consumers from a new Trump Administration rule that expands health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) — which, as we’ve explained, could raise individual market premiums and cause confusion and disruption for people with employer plans — by blocking or restricting substandard “short-term” health plans.

Discussions of Social Security often pit younger workers against older retirees, but Social Security is actually an intergenerational compact that helps Americans of all ages — which explains its enduring popularity among all generations.

The bill would reduce the number of workers whom the federal tax code taxes into, or deeper into, poverty—from 5.51 million today to less than 100,000.

The Trump Administration today proposed changes in a key SNAP (food stamps) rule which, if implemented, would take away basic food assistance from an estimated 3.1 million people, mainly working families with children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities.

The deal eliminates the threats both of an unprecedented U.S. government default on its debt obligations and of deep, damaging budget cuts that would have been triggered under the Budget Control Act.

This week at CBPP, we focused on the federal budget, health, Social Security, and the economy.

Policymakers should reach agreement on lifting the annual caps on total defense and non-defense funding before they leave for their August recess, so they can complete the appropriations bills in a timely way this fall — without the brinkmanship and uncertainty that can disrupt important government services. Freezing funding at 2019 levels, as some suggest, would shortchange non-defense programs and leave key investments underfunded.

While the Trump Administration has cited the improving economy as a factor, our analysis finds that it cannot explain the full national enrollment decline, nor can it explain the especially sharp enrollment declines in some states.

The past couple weeks at CBPP, we focused on health, the federal budget and taxes, state budgets and taxes, food assistance, family income support, housing, and the economy.

Restrictions that the federal and state governments imposed in the 1990s on the nation’s main cash assistance program for low-income mothers and their children are associated with negative behaviors in adolescent youth, especially boys, says a study we discussed in our recent research note.

Our new video series featuring low-wage workers in Maine affected by the three-month limit on SNAP (food stamp) benefits shows why losing SNAP can make it harder to get a job and rise out of poverty.

Alaska’s legislature is convening this week to debate whether to override Governor Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes of more than $400 million (about 10 percent of state spending) from the budget — 85 percent of which comes from education, public safety, and programs that serve low-income Alaskans.

The House is likely to vote soon on a bill to repeal the excise tax on high-cost health plans (the so-called “Cadillac tax”). That would be unwise for two reasons: it would set back efforts to slow the growth of health care costs, and it would lose substantial needed revenue.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to mark up a bill today that would prevent the U.S. territories (American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) from running out of Medicaid money when their current added federal funding expires later this year.

The Trump Administration is encouraging states to pursue “1332” waivers that would weaken health coverage and likely raise consumer costs by letting states depart from some Affordable Care Act (ACA) standards and requirements. But so far, no state has submitted a 1332 waiver proposal to implement the Administration’s new concepts.

Six of the 29 states (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) with Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) are expanding them this year, which will help low-paid workers and their families meet basic needs.

States from Hawaii to Connecticut responded to extreme wealth concentration this year by expanding taxes on the assets of the very wealthy — such as stocks, bonds, real estate, boats, and jewelry — while closing loopholes and ending other special tax benefits that shield many of these assets from state and local taxes.

New Hampshire has suspended a policy to take Medicaid coverage away from people not meeting work requirements, recognizing that it was on pace for large coverage losses — potentially almost 20,000 people in August.

The recently introduced Kildee-Evans bill would boost the incomes of an estimated 8 million Black households.