A new study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that President Trump’s sweeping tax and domestic policy legislation, which is expected to cause millions of people who rely on Medicaid to lose benefits, might not produce meaningful job gains.
Published today in BMJ, the study found that tying proof of work to Medicaid coverage didn’t improve employment gains in Georgia. “These results have critical implications,” the study stated, as Mr. Trump’s law will soon implement so-called work requirements across the country.
The news comes at the precipice of a possible government shutdown in which congressional Democrats are demanding that any bill to extend funding must reverse Medicaid cuts. In July, Republican lawmakers passed President Trump’s bill, commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which ushered in roughly $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending cuts. One provision, which models its policy details on Georgia’s program, requires proof of employment for many low-income Americans, saving the government an estimated $317 billion.
The New York Times previously reported that the bill used Medicaid work requirements to partially offset its tax cuts. Republicans say they are pushing able-bodied people to work and are thus extinguishing “waste, fraud and abuse.” On the political news show “Face the Nation,” Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, said, “If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system.”
Arkansas was the first state to implement work requirements, in 2018, but the rollout was narrow. It was restricted to adults ages 30 to 49 and stopped after nine months, a period that some policymakers argued was too short to see employment gains.
Georgia’s work requirements, implemented in 2023, have been running for the past two years and cover adults 19 to 64, similar to those in the federal bill, said Dr. Rishi Wadhera, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the study’s senior author.
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The post Medicaid Work Requirements Don’t Boost Employment, Study Shows appeared first on New York Times.
