Kevin Corinth explores the potential impact of a work requirement for federal housing assistance.
The Proposed Rule would allow, but not require, eligible Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) to implement work requirements and time limits for non-disabled working age recipients of Housing Choice Vouchers, Project-Based Vouchers and public housing; and allow the same flexibility for certain Owners of Project-Based Rental Assistance developments. Only PHAs that are not in receivership and are not designated as troubled performers, and only Owners that are not in default and meet other criteria, would be eligible.
In this comment, I first describe the two biggest problems with federal rental housing assistance—inequitable treatment of low-income families and discouragement of upward mobility. Deep subsidies and lengthy spells make federal rental assistance highly inequitable, providing a typical recipient household close to a quarter million dollars of subsidies over their total benefit spell while similar households receive nothing from this program. Federal rental assistance discourages upward mobility by imposing an implicit 30% tax on earnings that exacerbates already high implicit taxes from other benefit programs and the tax code, which weakens the financial benefits of work and marriage. I then argue that the Proposed Rule would substantially mitigate both of these problems, making federal rental housing assistance more equitable and encouraging upward mobility. I conclude by offering specific recommendations to further improve the Proposed Rule.
The federal government spends over $60 billion annually on rental assistance. Among all non medical in-kind transfer programs, federal rental assistance is the second most costly following the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which allocated $95 billion in benefits in fiscal year 2025. It also substantially exceeds spending on the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which totaled $35 billion in aid from federal and state governments in fiscal year 2024.
Despite the large amount of spending on federal rental assistance programs, only about one in four eligible households actually receives the benefit. That is because, unlike SNAP, rental housing assistance is not an entitlement, and so when available funds are exhausted, many eligible households are excluded from assistance.
