An America without poverty is possible.

For millions of Americans, public benefits play a critical role in helping make ends meet, but the way these benefits cut off as income rises can mean families face a financial setback when their earnings increase. This brief explains what benefits cliffs are and shares recommendations with policymakers for creating clear, understandable step-downs in benefits programs to help families translate increased earnings into increased financial security.

Families are feeling the strain of rising child care costs, unstable work, and the growing gap between wages and the cost of living. While these challenges are often framed as questions of personal responsibility or family choices, this blog shows that women’s economic security has always been shaped by policy decisions. Drawing on history from the fight for credit access and workplace protections to the veto of a national child care system, it connects past decisions to today’s affordability crisis. By grounding current conversations about work, care, and family policy in this context, the piece encourages policymakers to move toward structural solutions that support economic stability.

Poverty statistics shape how policymakers and the public understand economic hardship and the role public programs play in helping families meet basic needs. Recent Congressional calls for changes to how poverty is measured would ignore best practices and disguise the hardship that families experience. This blog post argues that misleading statistics could be used to support policies that gut public benefits programs, which would harm millions of people in low- and moderate-income families.

Millions of Americans rely on public benefits to meet daily needs, yet unnecessary barriers and outdated technology too often make accessing help a struggle. GCPI’s People-Centered Digital Benefits Project highlights state innovations for modernizing benefits delivery systems to meet people’s needs.

In this case study, Visiting Fellow Andrés Argüello explores Maryland’s people-centered design approach to building the One Benefits application—which allows people to apply for multiple public benefits programs through a single, streamlined application—and the leadership, governance, and organizational structures that were critical to success.

Safe, stable housing is the foundation for economic well-being, workforce stability, and the strength of entire communities, but housing affordability is a nationwide crisis. This report analyzes new housing construction in six large metropolitan areas to yield insights into who benefits—and who doesn’t—from greater supply. We examine how housing access and affordability have shifted in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

The findings raise questions about whether, on their own, supply side solutions will be sufficient to address the nation’s worsening affordability crisis. This resource can help policymakers understand how current development patterns are affecting affordability and what it will take to ensure lower-income renters can find and keep stable homes.