Major Means-Tested and Income Support Programs for the Working Class, 2009–2019

Abstract

This article examines policy changes to and trends in five cash or near-cash income support programs for low-income workers and their families from 2009 to 2019. Our analyses show that the safety net expanded during the recession and then contracted via the tightening of eligibility rules and expiration of most temporary expansions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), unemployment insurance (UI), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Expansions for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) over the period 2009 to 2019 align with a decades-long trend of social welfare policy reinforcing or enforcing labor force participation. Caseloads fell mostly rapidly for UI, which is explicitly designed as countercyclical support; and for TANF, which maintained high levels of administrative burden. We conclude with a cross-program discussion of the state of the social safety net in the pandemic era and postpandemic recovery.