According to some estimates, America spends nearly $1.5 trillion each year across 114 federal programs designed to fight poverty and support vulnerable families. So why do so many families remain stuck?
On this episode of Defending Ideas, Nic Dunn sits down with Clarence H. Carter, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services and author of “Our Net Has Holes in It,” for an inside look at America’s social safety net from someone who has spent more than three decades administering it at the federal, state, and local levels.
Carter argues that the core problem isn’t a lack of compassion or funding — it’s a lack of shared vision. Instead of orienting public benefits around America’s founding ideal of freedom, the system has become a maze of disconnected programs that too often trap families through benefit cliffs, perverse incentives, and bureaucratic complexity. As Carter puts it, the safety net should not merely deliver benefits — it should expand human freedom and help families move toward work-based self-reliance.
The conversation explores comprehensive reform, state-led innovation, the Upward Mobility Act, and why empowering states to test integrated solutions may be the most realistic path forward.
