The interaction of a raging pandemic and a deep recession are requiring government to take on numerous new tasks. Even more striking, it is asking us to reverse course on several important policies that have become well-entrenched over the years.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in efforts to protect our most vulnerable people. Protecting the poor requires reversing many principles central to our anti-poverty programs in ordinary times.
Over the years, we have relentlessly demanded that low-income people work. We steadily shrank the fraction of jobless workers that can receive unemployment compensation. We largely ended cash assistance for low-income families under the banner of “welfare reform.” We denied over a million unemployed childless adults food assistance based on their unemployment; the Trump administration wants to purge almost a million more under- and unemployed people who now get aid. The administration has even been encouraging states to deny unemployed people Medicaid.
These policies reflect a lack of sympathy for people for whom periodic bouts of unemployment and underemployment are inevitable due to child care or transportation difficulties, intermittent physical or mental disabilities, or a simple lack of skills.
To read the entire article from The Hill, click https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/492487-covid-19-highlights-and-intensifies-our-mistreatment-of-the-poor
