Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Federal and state policymakers seek to expand work requirements in Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), public housing, and housing choice vouchers, building on the welfare-to-work approach included in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance program. These policies would require program participants to work or participate in work-related activities for a minimum number of hours per week or per month to avoid losing benefits, unless they qualify for an exemption. However, program participants must navigate these requirements within a low-wage job market in which the widespread use of flexible scheduling practices and just-in-time scheduling software has resulted in inconsistent and unpredictable work hours for many employees.

This study draws on data from the December 2018 Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey—a nationally representative, internet-based survey of approximately 7,500 US nonelderly adults—to examine the prevalence of precarious work schedules among workers whose families participate in safety net programs. We find that, among nondisabled adults whose families participated in SNAP, TANF, rental assistance programs, or Medicaid or other public health insurance coverage in the past year, nearly 60 percent were working at the time of the survey, including nearly half who worked for an employer at their main job. Workers participating in safety net programs were more likely than nonparticipants to report working a rotating, split, or irregular work shift schedule (19.9 percent versus 14.4 percent) and less likely to work a regular daytime shift (58.3 percent versus 74.5 percent). They were also more likely to experience large fluctuations in weekly hours worked in the past month. Nearly 2 in 5 workers participating in safety net programs have no more than a week’s notice of their work schedule compared to about 1 in 5 nonparticipant workers, and safety net participants are more likely than nonparticipants to report limited control over when their workday begins and ends.

These findings suggest that current work requirement policies will increase the risk that families with working adults will lose access to public benefits if the policies are not designed to reflect the reality of instability in program participants’ work schedules.