Could one account replace food stamps, housing, child care benefits? This Utah group thinks so

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah-based think tank is proposing replacing several federal social welfare programs with a single benefit, and suggests the Beehive State could be one of the best states to pilot such a program.

Rather than delivering various welfare programs separately to address nutrition, housing, child care and other needs, the conservative-leaning Sutherland Institute is proposing that a handful of states test giving qualified residents payments in a single account each month to help them meet their needs.

While the nation's social safety net system has "done a lot of good," the system was "really kind of cobbled together over decades with individual programs being created or tinkered with," according to Nic Dunn, vice president of strategy at Sutherland.

"From the launch of the war on poverty in the 1960s to today, the various programs that comprise what we would now consider the social safety net were created at different times with different objectives and often overseen by different federal agencies," he told KSL. "It's a pretty fragmented system."

Not everyone is as enthused about the proposed shake-up of social programs, however.

Overhauling welfare programs could result in some beneficiaries falling through the cracks, according to Utahns Against Hunger Executive Gina Cornia, who argued for policies like worker protections and an increased minimum wage, as well as a rollback of changes made to programs like food stamps under the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."

"It is an interesting discussion ... but there's a lot at stake if we got it wrong," she said.

What are 'empowerment accounts?'

Sutherland isn't the first to propose what it is calling empowerment accounts to provide benefits. Dunn said he first learned of the idea from a 2022 report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

"(Empowerment accounts) would condense and replace some overstretched, wasteful programs into one consolidated and more effective program using existing resources," that report states. "By cutting down on bureaucratic bloat and streamlining payments, more resources would be used on direct poverty relief without requiring an overall net increase in government spending."

Like that report, Sutherland's proposal calls for eligibility to be based on income and come with work or training requirements for recipients.

"The basic principle that is in the empowerment account concept ... is that an empowerment account would have a phase-out rate or a taper rate," Dunn said. "As families' earned income increases, you would want their public benefits to decrease in some fashion. ... As their income grows, they are earning what they need through earned income rather than through the safety net, but doing it in such a way that it is transparent and predictable for those families."

That could also help address what are known as benefit cliffs, which occur when a slight increase in income causes a more dramatic loss of public benefits.

"You don't want that phase-out rate to be so high that it replicates the disincentive effect that families are sometimes afraid about now," Dunn said.

The report doesn't propose a specific taper rate for benefits, but Dunn said potential pilot programs could help determine the most effective rate.

'Driven by the cost of living'

Cornia, who leads Utahns Against Hunger, was skeptical about the proposal as a whole, and particularly the focus on work requirements.

"This is not about people not being willing to work," she said. "This is about whether work actually supports and can pay for basic human needs, which are housing, health care and food. ... If you're working full time, you shouldn't have to need public assistance. That should just not be a thing. You should be able to raise your family on a full-time job."

She said her organization has seen a 15% drop in cases on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, since the passage of last year's spending bill. But she said those issues were driven by policy changes, including in that bill and were not the result of underlying issues with the program.

"The most glaring food insecurity isn't driven by failures of the SNAP program, it is driven by the cost of living," she said. "If we want to talk about moving people out of poverty, we have to talk about income inequality."

Can states create empowerment accounts?

Many federal social programs are primarily administered by states, which can ask federal officials for waivers to tweak how the programs are run. A wholesale change like what the Sutherland Institute is proposing would likely require further legislation to grant states the ability to replace various programs with one account.

Utah Rep. Blake Moore has a proposal in Congress to do just that by allowing five different states to conduct five-year pilot programs to test the empowerment account model. His bill, the Upward Mobility Act, was introduced in January and also draws on Utah's Department of Workforce Services "one door to work" model that consolidates workforce support through a single agency.

"Utah is leading the nation with our one-stop-shop model for benefit programs designed to provide families with necessities and promote self-reliance," Moore said in a statement earlier this year. "However, further innovation to streamline the distribution of benefits is limited due to federal red tape, resulting in benefits cliffs that disincentivize seeking higher pay."

The Beehive State's workforce service policies and strong economic outcomes make the state a prime candidate to test a new model of social benefits, according to Dunn.

"There's just a number of reasons why Utah would be really well-suited to be either the leading or one of the leading pilot states," he said. "The Upward Mobility Act passing would be a hugely significant step forward for these kinds of innovative reform conversations, and frankly, I think that's what we need."

Related topics