Perspectives

Current issues

The article “The Trump Administration Says Poverty Is Over. They’re Lying.” by Bryce Covert was written in response to the Trump administration’s plans to introduce work requirements on several welfare programs, as a measure to reduce poverty.

President Donald Trump signed the Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility executive order in April 2018. The order was criticised because it ordered federal agencies to enforce current work requirements and impose further requirements on welfare programs, despite poverty experts’ consensus that work requirements are not effective in reducing poverty. Furthermore, some critics accused the administration of using work requirements to purposefully discourage people from applying for welfare or exclude them from benefits programs in an effort to cut expenses.

Since the article was written, federal officia...