A look at safety net policy over time and across states

Introduction

The social safety net is a key policy apparatus for countering poverty and inequality. Over the past several decades, cash, food, and healthcare programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and tax credits have supported low-income households. Research shows that these programs have lifted millions of families out of poverty, improved children’s long-term outcomes, and insured households against sudden income shocks. 

Our recently updated interactive tool tracks the generosity of state safety net policies, program by program, from 2001 to 2024. The tool calculates the benefits that would accrue to a fixed, representative sample of non-immigrant families with children if they claimed everything for which they were eligible. Applying this same sample to every state and year isolates differences in program rules from differences in economic need, demographics, or program take-up. Any variation in calculated benefits over time (see Figure 1) or across states reflects changes in policy generosity. This update extends the tool’s coverage to 2001 through 2024 and adds SSI and Medicaid to the programs already tracked—TANF, SNAP, and refundable tax credits. It also broadens the family types analyzed to include married-parent, single-parent, and partnered-parent households, and reflects program rules for families with a disabled member. 

Below, we highlight some findings from the most recent update.

The safety net over time 

Families often rely on multiple sources of support simultaneously, so the safety net is best understood not as a collection of isolated programs, but as a package.  

Taken together, cash and food generosity increased between 2001 and 2024. Support rose around 2009 in response to the Great Recession and then again, more sharply, during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven primarily by temporary expansions to the Child Tax Credit and SNAP.¹ Since the pandemic ended, benefit levels have come back down close to their prior range. Even so, the total cash and food package remains higher in 2024 than it was in 2001 (growing by about 24% during that period), and Medicaid has also become more available. 

As overall generosity has grown, the composition of the safety net has changed. Support has shifted away from traditional cash assistance and toward in-kind and tax-based benefits. This shift has reshaped who participates in benefit programs; today’s safety net increasingly prioritizes working families and provides less assistance to those without earned income.  

This trend is reflected in the growth of combined federal and state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) alongside the decline in TANF benefits. Over the period reflected in our data, the combined federal and state EITC benefit grew by roughly 19%, while TANF fell by about a quarter. Most of that EITC growth came from an expansion in state credits.² The decline in TANF is likely compounded by the program’s relatively high administrative burden, which limits program access for eligible families and contributes to low take-up rates. Because our generosity index only reflects program rules and not actual receipt, these low take-up rates are not reflected in the data we present.  

This shift away from cash transfers and toward refundable tax credits affects how the safety net reacts to economic downturns. SNAP has proven responsive to crises, expanding during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. But because tax credits are lost when a household is not working, this shift to cash support through tax credits may ultimately weaken the safety net’s capacity to act as an automatic stabilizer for the macroeconomy. 

Figure 2 tracks the share of adults and children within families eligible for Medicaid. Child eligibility has grown slightly across the full period and now sits at around 39% in the average family. Adult eligibility jumped discretely when the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to cover low-income adults in 2014.

Recent federal legislation will reshape access to the safety net, though the 2001 to 2024 data from the interactive does not reflect these changes. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed in 2025, raises SNAP’s work requirement age ceiling and narrows eligibility for several immigrant categories. It also introduces new Medicaid work requirements and moves eligibility redeterminations from annual to twice-yearly—changes that the Congressional Budget Office projects will contribute to millions losing health coverage over the next decade.  

The safety net across states 

The rules governing these programs—specifically who is eligible and how much support they receive—vary across states. While some program parameters are set almost entirely by the federal government, others grant states wide latitude (like TANF block grants or Medicaid eligibility thresholds). Furthermore, federal benefits can vary across states because program rules interact (for instance, TANF income is counted when determining SNAP eligibility, meaning TANF changes affect SNAP benefits). Because of this state-level discretion, the national safety net actually operates as 51 distinct systems—one for each state plus the District of Columbia.  

Figure 3 maps cash and food generosity across states in 2024. The most generous states are Hawaii, Alaska, Minnesota, California, and D.C., while the least generous states are Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. There is a roughly $3,000 gap in average total benefits between the top and bottom state; the most generous state provides almost twice as much in benefits on average compared to the least generous one.  

State EITC and TANF vary the most across states because both are largely or entirely state-determined—states choose whether to offer a state EITC and set their own rate, while TANF is a fixed federal block grant with no national benefit floor, giving states full discretion over cash amounts. SSI, federal EITC, and ACTC vary little across states since they largely follow a single federal formula with limited state discretion. SNAP varies more across states because state TANF rules indirectly impact SNAP benefit amounts. 

Figure 4 maps Medicaid eligibility by state. The most generous states are New York, D.C., Hawaii, Minnesota, and Connecticut, while the least generous states are Texas, Wyoming, Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina. Children are covered far more consistently across states than adults. This state-by-state variation largely reflects the discretion states retain in adopting the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and in setting their own eligibility thresholds.

Conclusion 

Assessing the generosity of the social safety net requires considering the full package of benefits across place and time. Eligibility rules change, programs interact with one another, and states exercise discretion over the administration of many programs. Measures based solely on spending or program participation may therefore reflect differences in state demographics, economic conditions, or benefit take-up rather than the generosity of program rules. Our newly updated interactive isolates rule-based policy generosity by calculating the benefits that a constant sample of families would receive in every state and year. 

Data presented in the interactive reveal that cash and food assistance together have grown modestly over the last few decades, while expanding substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, the composition of the safety net has shifted away from traditional cash assistance and toward in-kind benefits and refundable tax credits. States also continue to exercise meaningful discretion over the design and administration of certain programs, generating substantial variation in generosity across states. 

The interactive does not capture federal policy changes after 2024, which are expected to shift benefits further toward working families, reduce support for households without earnings, and constrain state flexibility in certain programs.