Robert Greenstein

1 month ago | brookings.edu | Robert Greenstein |Adrianna Pita

House Republicans are currently negotiating a budget reconciliation bill that packages extensive tax breaks with deep spending cuts to anti-poverty programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Robert Greenstein explains how the U.S. safety net has cut the poverty rate nearly in half in recent decades and the impacts of the cuts now being considered.   PITA: You’re listening to The Current, part of the Brookings Podcast Network. I’m your host, Adrianna Pita.

Sep 3, 2024 | hamiltonproject.org | Robert Greenstein

As someone who has closely followed and written about presidential budgets and social and anti-poverty programs for most of the past half-century, I examine here proposals advanced by former President Donald Trump during his years in office—mainly measures proposed in his administration’s annual budgets—that would affect social programs for people with low or moderate incomes.

May 16, 2024 | thehill.com | Robert Greenstein

Over the past half-century, the U.S. safety net has grown considerably stronger for children and elderly adults, substantially reducing poverty among them. But the story is starkly different for another group of Americans that we hear far less about: non-elderly adults, aged 18-64, who aren’t raising children and don’t have a severe enough, or long-lasting enough, disability to meet the stringent criteria for federal disability benefits. This is no small group.

Apr 16, 2024 | brookings.edu | Robert Greenstein

The U.S. safety net has grown significantly stronger for children and elderly adults over the past half century. However, the story is starkly different for non-elderly adults who are not raising children and do not receive Supplemental Security Income disability benefits or Social Security benefits, Robert Greenstein argues in his Hamilton Project paper. In 2017, this group numbered nearly 106 million people, or nearly 33 percent of the U.S. noninstitutionalized population.