Browsing: Safety Net

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — colloquially known as “food stamps” and, in Wisconsin, also called FoodShare — has grown over time both in the number of people receiving benefits and in the percentage of households doing so.

Many SNAP recipients avoid healthy foods and spend a large percentage of their benefits on sugary beverages and prepared desserts, according to Angela Rachidi, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and visiting fellow at the Badger Institute.

Wisconsin’s FoodShare is supposed to be a short-term safety net program. But redistributionists have used the pandemic as an excuse to grow government involvement in one of the most basic aspects of human life — how individuals feed themselves — in an upward trajectory detached from meaningful metrics on need or economics.

For decades, the federal government has assumed a larger role in funding and running safety net programs, leaving states with little ability to address flaws such as employment and marriage disincentives and little power to make changes. State leaders must work to change this.

The good things in life in this democracy — opportunity, fulfillment, upward mobility, prosperity, the redounding energy and succor that comes from free association, love of relatives and friends

Even before the pandemic, U.S. entitlement spending was on an unsustainable path, the growth in means-tested safety net programs far outstripping inflation.

Awash in federal bailout cash, some Wisconsin cities ask for a property tax hike 

As the COVID-19 pandemic struck the  United States in 2020, Congress began shotgunning money out over the country in unprecedented ways.

The following is testimony submitted by Badger Institute Visiting Fellow Angela Rachidi in favor of AB 935 – FoodShare work and FoodShare employment and training requirements and drug testing.

It’s an understatement to say that Wisconsin businesses are struggling to find workers.

Shortly after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion bill designed to alleviate the negative economic consequences of government-mandated shutdowns.

No strings attached entitlements for targeted groups is preview of something more permanent 

Progressives ignore past failures, and have no idea how to pay for a ‘greater society’ 

Lawmakers should reinstate work requirements to encourage labor force participation, says author

Milwaukee, Madison and Wausau plan to pay certain low-income families monthly stipends with no strings attached

Some of the governor’s budget proposals to help low-income families are ineffective, ripe for abuse or better left to the private sector
By Angela Rachidi
March 16, 2021

Nearly 90,000 Wisconsin small businesses that have taken out loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) will face hundreds of millions of dollars in state income tax liability on those loans this spring, despite the loans being tax-free at the federal level.

Parents with disabilities or health limitations often time out of the program or end up on disability insurance

Parents with disabilities or health limitations often time out of the program or end up on disability insurance

The Badger Institute hosted a roundtable discussion on work, poverty and the use of federal safety nets to promote self-reliance.