Top Five Reasons Democrats’ Welfare Expansion Fails Struggling Families and Threatens Jobs Recovery

October 19, 2021

Coming out of a pandemic, the last thing Americans need are higher prices, fewer jobs, and the largest expansion of our welfare state in a lifetime.

Here are the top five reasons Democrats’ welfare state expansion will fail America’s needy families, and threaten our jobs recovery.

1. Democrats’ dangerous expansion of the welfare state disincentivizes work and hooks a new generation on government dependency.

Democrats have turned the GOP-created Child Tax Credit (CTC) into a “welfare without work” program — providing endless government checks that pay more to stay at home than to work.
Democrats’ untargeted welfare-without-work policies are holding back our jobs recovery by forcing Main Street businesses to compete with government benefits to fill record job openings.
Even Senator Manchin agrees: parents should work to receive the CTC.

2. Democrats have declared War on Work.

According to scholars at the University of Chicago Democrats’ plan to end CTC work requirements would cause1.5 million workers to exit the labor force.
September’s jobs report showed President Biden is already a whopping 944,000 jobs short of what he promised from his last stimulus, while American families are falling behind as real wages decline with Bidenflation.
In the midst of a national worker shortage, we can’t afford to relegate an entire generation of workers to the sidelines.
With inflation on track to be the highest in 40 years, American families cannot afford higher taxes to pay for Democrats’ untargeted welfare-without-work policies.

3. Struggling families need good paying jobs, not endless government checks.

In what has been called the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” Democrats want to send checks to poor families indefinitely, and then walk away .
Our safety net should be designed to provide temporary assistance and invest in growing the capacity of individuals to thrive.
No amount of endless government checks can address the underlying challenges families face. The best way to help American families is with good paying jobs, not endless government checks.

4. Studies find that the CTC expansion helps the rich — not America’s neediest families.

40 percent of the benefits would go to the top half of the household income distribution–rather than focusing on reducing inequality for lower and middle-income Americans.
Wealthy Americans earning well over $200,000 a year will receive CTC checks whether they want them or not.
Meanwhile, Democrats are paying for their welfare expansion with steep taxes on the middle class and Main Street businesses.

5. Democrats’ tax hikes and welfare-without-work policies reverse the gains made under bipartisan welfare reform.

Twenty-five years ago, in the face of rising welfare caseloads, long durations in poverty, and no work for millions, Republicans and Democrats came together to reform the nation’s welfare system. These reforms were based on one simple idea: the best way out of poverty is a job.
Democrats are taking us backward using emergency COVID relief to create permanent new welfare-without-work entitlement programs.