Making "Work Supports" Work

The goal of the Making “Work Supports” Work project is to help policymakers create a work support system that enables full-time workers to provide for their families and ensures that earning more always improves a family’s financial bottom line.

Millions of parents work full-time, year-round and yet struggle to provide even minimum daily necessities for their families. Government “work supports”—such as earned income tax credits, child care subsidies, health insurance, food stamps, and housing assistance—can help. These benefits encourage, support, and reward work, helping families close the gap between low wages and basic expenses.

In practice, however, few families receive all of the benefits for which they are eligible, and even multiple supports are often not enough to enable working families to make ends meet. Moreover, work supports are typically means-tested, and families tend to lose benefits before they can get by on earnings alone. In some cases, small increases in earnings can trigger sharp reductions in benefits, leaving families no better off—or even worse off—than before. In short, working more doesn’t always pay.

Through Making “Work Supports” Work, NCCP and our partner organizations explore these policy challenges and identify state-specific solutions as well as federal reforms, using NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator to model both existing and alternative policies.

For more information, see Making “Work Supports” Work: Project Description.

Making “Work Supports” Work is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation with additional support from the Seattle Foundation, the Louisiana Department of Social Services, and the Women's Foundation of Colorado.