Thread by @lymanstoneky

Glad to see @HawleyMO introducing a plan to directly support parents, testifies to the fact that there's growing interest among conservatives to do something in this space. businessinsider.com/josh-hawley-ch…

That said, having a fixed threshold seems very unusual, and to be honest I don't really love this way of doing a work requirement at all. If you're gonna have a work rule, at least recognize the possibility of work by a non-married partner.

You don't have to give them the same benefit as marrieds, since I believe the goal here is to create a marriage bonus to offset penalties in other programs, but we should acknowledge the presence of non-married-partner work supporting a family.

So at a minimum, I think you really need a rule like "economically supportive parents" or something. Otherwise this puts stay-at-home spouses in a hugely bad bind if e.g. the relationship becomes abusive.

Sorry, why would you give two parents worth of benefits to a program you've explicitly said is a *parent* benefit, i.e. *not* a child benefit?

https://twitter.com/binneystreetbio/status/1386746618234429447

You can argue "parents don't deserve benefits!" and maybe you're right; tbh I think I agree with that view and benefits should be child-oriented.

But *if* you're going to do a parent bonus, doing it neutrally *per person in a public legal arrangement of parenting* seems fair.

The issue I see is that the work requirement wouldn't allow a stay-at-home parent with an abusive spouse to separate and continue to claim *any* benefit. He or she would lose 100% of it, ***even if they won a child support payment*** order.

So even though there's a working parent providing support, the non-working parent would get $0.

So the big problem here isn't really the single/married thing. You may dislike the idea of a per-parent payment (I don't love it), but it makes plenty of sense.

The big problem is the work requirement with an abrupt threshold.