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INCOME & WORK SUPPORTS UPDATE
JULY 2020

Fact Sheets: Effective COVID Relief Depends on the Inclusion of Immigrants

The COVID-19 legislation enacted to date excludes millions of immigrants and their families from health care and economic relief. These fact sheets provide data snapshots describing immigrants nationally and across select states, barriers they face to health care access, and how the Heroes Act would improve their health and safety.

Medicaid Financing: Dangers of Block Grants and Per Capita Caps Summary and Full Report

In 2017, Congress repeatedly rejected proposals to change Medicaid's financing to a block grant structure. Nonetheless, CMS released guidance in January 2020 to states encouraging them to use waiver authority to apply for per capita caps and eventually block grants. This updated brief draws lessons from the experiences under TANF and CCDBG to explain the harmful effects on Medicaid that could be expected from using a block grant or per capita cap funding structure.

CLASP Comments on SNAP E&T NPRM

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposed SNAP E&T regulation largely implements provisions that were included in the bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill. However, in light of the current health and economic crisis, we urge FNS to immediately issue guidance allowing states to begin implementing subsidized employment as part of their E&T programs as soon as the health crisis permits people to safely return to work.

IWS Updates

Like many of you, we've spent a lot of time this month thinking about our part in the nation's long-overdue reckoning with its past and present systems of racism and white supremacy, and what the increased public awareness means for our efforts to fight poverty and improve the lives of people with low incomes. With Black and Latinx people dying from COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than white people, public health data is reflecting generations of racial inequities. Moving forward, policy solutions must address the systemic and historic discrimination that has long driven policymaking and implementation of public benefit programs.

Failure to do so will only deepen existing inequities. For several years, we've been working to more explicitly see and name the role of racism in limiting access to—and shaping the design of—key income and work support programs. We know that we still have more to do to ensure that our work consistently helps dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy.

We'd love to hear what you're thinking about these issues. Email us at [email protected], and we can set up a time to talk. On a different note, CLASP has moved offices. Our new mailing address is 1310 L St, NW, Suite 900, Washington DC xxxxxx. We're still working remotely, but are hopeful that we'll be able to enjoy the new space sometime later this year.