If America is going to have a golden age, then we have to get everyone who is able to work off the sidelines. There are 7.6 million open jobs in this country, but at the same time, there is a troubling trend of men who are prime working age dropping out of the labor force.
President Donald Trump’s trade policy is meant to bring back manufacturing jobs for these out-of-work men, but recent history has shown that even if the jobs exist, people aren’t taking them. The problem isn’t the availability of jobs. It is that too many people have been disconnected from work for too long and are dependent on the social safety net.
The federal government spends more than $18.9 billion annually on all employment and training programs intended to help people who have fallen on hard times get back into the workforce. But these workforce development programs are completely separate from the safety net, which is its own tangled snare of more than 80 disconnected federal programs administered by a web of state agencies. These two ecosystems of programs don’t share locations, data, or administration. Yet they are supposed to serve the same person, who is left navigating forms, eligibility systems, and offices across town instead of looking for work.
There is a better way to create a work-first comprehensive system, and we know it because Utah has been doing it for 30 years. While the nation was undergoing transformative safety net reform in the 1990s, Utah did something unique. Michael Leavitt, the governor at the time, successfully merged human services with workforce services to create better coordination.
Utah began with a legislative audit of the state’s 23 workforce programs that were operated out of six different state agencies. The 1992 audit unearthed a fragmented system with “duplication of bureaucracy,” which made it difficult for low-income Utahns to access services. In 1995, Utah consolidated 36 programs across five agencies into one Department of Workforce Services and has continued that streamlining ever since.
This “One Door” model creates a cohesive safety net system — one designed to get work-capable recipients the support they need to get back on their feet and transition more swiftly into the workforce. The data from Utah bears this out when compared to the nation. For example, over the past 30 years, U.S. food stamp participation as a percent of the overall population increased by 16.6%. In Utah, it has dropped by 26.4%.
The Heritage Foundation found that “the success of Utah’s ‘One Door’ model is undeniable. Take the state’s employment-to-population ratio, which incorporates both labor force participation and unemployment: Before Utah’s ‘One Door’ system (from 1976 to 1997), the state’s employment-to-population ratio was 4.2 percentage points higher than the rest of the U.S. Since embarking on ‘One Door,’ Utah’s advantage has averaged 6 percentage points and currently stands at 7.3 points. The state’s employment-to-population ratio is currently 67.4%; for the entire U.S., it’s 60.1%.”
The nation needs 1990s-style, state-led reform again to create a truly work-centric safety net system. The good news is that states are already ready to make the bold changes necessary, with Louisiana taking the lead.
PAYING FOR TRUMP’S AGENDA COULD REQUIRE A GOP WAR OVER WELFARE AND MEDICAID
Louisiana started with a set of state audits that found that 1.07 million people, or 23% of the population, were provided assistance in 2023, with a total expenditure of $3.27 billion across various programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the Child Care Assistance Program, and unemployment insurance. The state has 110,000 open jobs and one of the nation’s lowest labor force participation rates at 59%. Under Gov. Jeff Landry’s (R-LA) visionary leadership, Louisiana is poised to be the first state since Utah to pass legislation this week that will begin to create a One Door system that puts work first.
Like the reforms of the 1990s, Congress is paying attention to state innovation that solves America’s work crisis. In addition to Louisiana, states such as Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi have passed bills to create One Door-style plans. Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) introduced the One Door to Work Act, which would grant states flexibility to implement Utah’s successful model of integrating safety net and workforce programs. Now is the time for both states and Congress to enact the biggest reforms of our time aimed at lifting people out of subsistence on government programs and into full participation in American life.
Daniel Erspamer is the CEO of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy and a member of the Alliance for Opportunity.