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686 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (2019)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0686 and id is 1 raw text is: Entitlements: Options for Reforming the Social Safety Net in the United States By ROBERT A. MOFFITT and JAMES P. ZILIAK A combination of demographic aging and diversifica- tion, volatile business cycle conditions, stagnant real wages, declining employment, and policy choices have increased the need to examine the adequacy of the U.S. social safety net. Is it accomplishing what it is designed to do? Can it weather a fiscal storm? Current entitle- ment programs are in almost all cases providing important assistance to U.S. families and are improving families' well-being, but they face significant challenges that will require the attention of policy-makers around the country. Some programs may need a structural revamping, while others could do with incremental modifications. Because U.S. entitlement programs address complex social issues, they are themselves complex systems; it follows, then, that meaningful reform must be thoughtful and nuanced, eschewing political expediency. Further, federal support is needed for even more high-quality research that will provide evidence on the types of reforms that will achieve the goals of the programs. Keywords: social insurance; means-tested transfers; welfare; safety net Aperfect storm of demographic aging, a deep and protracted recession, secular decline in employment and real wages, and public policy choices at the federal and state levels have resulted in substantial fiscal Robert A. Moffitt is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Johns Hopkins University. James P Ziliak is the Carol Martin Gatton Endowed Chair in Microeconomics in the Department of Economics at the University of Kentucky. NOTE: We are grateful to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation for financial support that made this volume possible. The articles benefited greatly from the com- ments of participants at an authors' conference, espe- cially Melissa Kearney, Bradley Hardy, Elaine Maag, Aaron Yelowitz, Karen Dynan, Angela Rachidi, and Jeremie Greer. All opinions and conclusions are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsoring agency. Correspondence: jziliak@uky.edu DOI: 10.1177/0002716219884546 ANNALS, AAPSS, 686, November 2019 8

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