The launch of the war on poverty in 1964 created the intellectual and policy framing for much of today’s federal social welfare system. And while there is ample evidence of America’s social safety net alleviating material deprivation of the nation’s poor, there is also compelling evidence that the system has yet to fully realize the aspirational vision at the heart of the war on poverty: work-based independence.
This paper draws on that intellectual framing, coupled with a brief review of the constraints of the current safety net, to articulate a twofold proposal to policymakers: we must reframe the way we think about social safety-net reform – away from solely “tinkering” with existing programs and toward comprehensive, aspirational reform – and we should explore the promise and potential for testing a reimagined, streamlined safety net in the form of empowerment accounts.
Such an approach would test, in a state-level pilot program, replacing multiple safety net programs with just one thoughtfully crafted public assistance program, integrated into the workforce development apparatus already in place at the state level. An empowerment account would consolidate the funding from multiple of these fragmented programs into a single, streamlined benefit – delivered monthly, tied to work or training, and designed to phase out gradually as earnings rise rather than collapsing at a cliff. Rather than navigating multiple programs with various rules, a family would manage one account oriented around a single goal: a stable, supported path toward work-based independence.
State-led innovation pursuing aspirational reform – and federal legislation making it possible at scale – is also politically popular, as new Sutherland/Y2 Analytics survey evidence in this paper shows.
