SSA is training call center employees to tell suicidal callers that "suicide is only one option and that there is no urgency to make any decisions."

Fun bill introduced in Oklahoma: nonrefundable child tax credit only for "married mothers and fathers of biological children." Explicitly excludes adoptive parents and widowed parents and you get a bigger credit if you were married before the child was born.

This bill in Missouri to codify Medicaid work requirements *in the state's constitution* passed out of committee yesterday

Insane stat: Nearly a quarter of all federal hires in September 2025 were ICE agents. Normally, the agency hires 100-200 people per month, but in September, that number skyrocketed to over 2,800.

In Nick Shirley's hourlong interview with "David" released yesterday, David says that Somalis are committing fraud to "further their goal of a world caliphate"

If your concern is about fraud, and making sure the poorest receive funds, block grants are the opposite of what we should do. They allow states to redirect the money away from the neediest. OTOH, there is very persuasive evidence that SNAP really helps people. academic.oup.com/restud/artic...

The WaPO editorial equates error rates with fraud, and applaud Trump laws that will penalize states for error rates. Either they don't know that is incorrect, or they don't care. Here, @pamherd.bsky.social explains what error rates actually mean. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-big-be...

The Washington Post editorial board comes out in favor of the Venezuela attack/operation to capture Maduro

Shout out to @willroyce.bsky.social —an excellent researcher who later corroborated my id and had collected some valuable screenshots before they disappeared!

Meet the “researcher” who Nick Shirley relied on for his viral Minnesota fraud video:

NEW: The anonymous "researcher" in Nick Shirley's viral "fraud" video--treated as a concerned citizen on Fox News and elsewhere--is actually a Minnesota state lobbyist and political activist who worked with a GOP House staffer to provide Shirley info/ theintercept.com/2026/01/03/m...

Remember that City Journal story that claimed Minnesota taxpayers are funding Al-Shabaab? Apparently the only named source in the story says it's “bullshit." www.startribune.com/city-journal...

"Idaho’s DOGE Committee will recommend repealing Medicaid expansion and eventually eliminating the state funding for the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs."

These are really egregious errors, especially this first one. I took the time to email WSJ requesting a correction. You should too! I can send you what I wrote.

This op-ed is making the rounds on conservative Twitter. Tons wrong with it, but just to give you an idea: A single parent with two school-age children earning $11,000 is not eligible for $3,400 in CTCs. The real amount is $1,275—less than half of what they say. WSJ fact-checking a bit lackluster.

Can someone in good standing with the billionaires PLEASE tell them to stop using median household income within ZIP codes as a targeting mechanism!

I've been waiting for OPM to release updated federal employment data for months. In July, the agency said that "beginning this fall," it would release data in a "reimagined format." But it seems that OPM is missing its own deadline. As of today, it says updated data will be available in January.

The result of allocating money based on ZIP codes’ median incomes rather than actual household income: INELIGIBLE: Household making $30k in South Boston (median income $156,000, child poverty rate ~26%) ELIGIBLE: Household making $500k in Yonkers (median income $142,000, child poverty rate ~3%)

After months of trying and failing, I have finally figured out the solution to one of the most important issues of our time: left- and right-justifying text on the same line in google docs

Wrote this up for posterity ⬇️

Adding in data from Sep, Oct Nov: 1. Disability claims still down a lot, but a little bit less than it looked like before 2. SSDI approval rating still down a lot, but trend looks a little less concerning than it did before WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON!

Our brave troops protecting the Georgetown AMC bathrooms 💪

Missed that the Dell money is only available to people in ZIP codes with a median income <$150k I am not aware of any program where targeting is based just on where you live and not individual/household income. Not that crazy for low-income people to live in high-income areas.

"The State Department will finalize its layoffs of 250 foreign service officers on Friday, according to a new notice sent to impacted staff, despite a congressionally mandated moratorium on the cuts through January."

New post, in which I finally answer the question on everybody's mind: Why Are Disability Claims Down? willroyce.substack.com/p/why-are-di...

Re: the provisions that prevent RIFs for the duration of the CR, any reason Trump admin won't contest that in court? Is that a thing that has been done before? Difficult to see how an admin that argues impoundments are lawful would accede to limits on their ability to fire fed workers?

New work requirements for Medicaid are expected to leave millions of Americans uninsured. For Equifax, which charges states steep prices for its trove of employment data, it is a business opportunity.

Poverty is a common, often temporary experience — though more common and less temporary for some

Some things to keep in mind

-Sep 30: USDA releases guidance saying they can use contingency fund -Oct 10: USDA tells states to prepare for lapse -Oct 23: USDA deletes guidance saying they can use contingency fund -Oct 24: USDA says it can’t use contingency fund -Oct 31: Courts tell USDA to release funds -Nov 1: no funds go out

new post

The Good Samaritan, by Joseph Highmore, 1744, 📸 by @patricksmith04

On The Everything App, you get 11k retweets for saying that SNAP spending went up under Biden because of illegal immigration. Real answer: we increased benefit amounts during COVID, starting under Trump. Not the greatest information environment over there.

The Fed lacks gold-standard data that inform its monetary policy decisions, due to the shutdown. They had a secret deal with ADP for granular private data. But a Fed governor revealed the collaboration in a speech, so ADP got mad and cut the Fed off. A laugh-before-crying story from me:

@ lawmakers please start thinking about the next Comptroller General www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Seam bias is killing me

Something I found out while doing research for this is that bonuses are particularly large/common in March. Didn't know that. Kinda interesting.

I wrote about a small, dumb issue with work requirements. States should avoid measuring work hours just at the level of the *calendar* month, since, you know, one month is shorter than the others. willroyce.substack.com/p/work-requi...

Reports raise red flags: Georgia spent $54M on admin costs for its #Medicaid waiver, nearly twice the $26M spent on care, while enrolling under 3,500 people. CMS still extended the costly program that ties coverage to work requirements. www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

Always funny to get updates from DOGE

Apparently I accidentally stole the color scheme for my Substack from Baker McKenzie

% of US men under 30 who say legal sports betting is a *bad thing* for society 22% in 2022 47% in 2025 No other demographic group has seen a bigger increase.

NEW US labor market flows remained sluggish in August, as hiring slowed to the lowest level since early COVID The hiring rate fell to 3.2%, layoffs fell to 1.1%, quits fell to 1.9%, and job openings rose to 4.3%

Really interesting story in @404media.co on how lawyers explain themselves when they are caught using AI-hallucinated citations www.404media.co/18-lawyers-c...

It would be really funny (tragic) if the max SSI benefit amount surpassed $2,000 without Congress altering the asset limit. An SSI beneficiary would presumably be made ineligible for SSI benefits upon receiving them.

A government shutdown is looming. If it happens, the nation’s top nutrition program for low-income moms and babies will run out of $$ within days. Story for @politico.com w/ Rachel Shin subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

One weird trick to getting your insured unemployment rate down, and thereby making it unlikely that extended benefits will trigger in your state: Administer unemployment benefits as a lump sum rather than a weekly payment. (Or just cut the duration of benefits. That works too.)

The "insured unemployment rate" is a strange metric to use for automatically extending unemployment benefits. But that's exactly what we do. I wrote about it. Lots of charts, if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm starting a newsletter (ik, ik) focused on the administration of the welfare state. It's called Makeshift Arrangements, which is a reference to my favorite Frances Perkins quote. First full piece out tomorrow. Read more below! Free to subscribe, and hey, you can always just unsubscribe later.

Anyone who is reading this who has worked with the SIPP: am I correct in thinking that there is no way to directly observe respondents' hours worked within the reference month? Because I would really like to do that and the way that weeks are coded make it not possible.