#means testing

[liberalsarecool]

'Means test' is conservative cruelty. Cutting funds, programs, and assistance for the most deserving of care/stability is the religion of the Right. Punch down. Think small. Act small.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Means-Testing Industrial Complex

As Republicans tightened work requirements and eligibility rules for Medicaid and SNAP last year, Equifax’s CEO openly celebrated the profit

Verifying a workers’ income for government health insurance, and Equifax’s capture of that function, is just one illustrative component of the Rube Goldberg machine that comprises America’s rigorously means-tested safety net and its vulnerability to corporate capture. Complex eligibility rules and administrative hurdles to determine who deserves coverage and who does not are fractured across government agencies and jurisdictions. Many research studies, magazine spreads, and books have documented how this complexity keeps millions of eligible people from accessing billions of dollars in benefits they are entitled to – the unemployed are locked out of their unemployment insurance, the uninsured are never enrolled in their health coverage, and the hungry are denied food assistance. Vice President Harris’ announcement of “a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities” is perhaps the best recent caricature of how increasingly complex eligibility rules have failed to deliver for millions of Americans. And this labyrinth of eligibility rules doesn’t just fail the intended beneficiaries – the administrative complexity they create presents an enormous opportunity for profit by government contractors. After the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency was ended by Congress in 2023, I led a government team at the United States Digital Service to help fix state Medicaid systems that had fallen into crisis. As we rushed to put out fires in Red and Blue states alike we encountered the same problem – entrenched government contractors like Deloitte had charged millions to build error–prone systems that state governments had no capacity to fix. Billing by the hour, growing the complexity and incomprehensibility of these systems proved profitable. Changes that my team could make in minutes were quoted as requiring hundreds of billable hours. When we discovered that nearly 500,000 children had lost their health coverage improperly because of software errors, many system contractors were painfully slow to reinstate coverage for those children and fix the errors.

[...]

Again, new work requirements for Medicaid highlight the profits to be made from adding complexity to the safety net. Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people. As the other 55 states and territories are now forced to join Georgia and implement new work requirements, millions will lose their healthcare and Deloitte will cash in.

28 January 2026

[odinsblog]

This ties in nicely with an old (ongoing) post/philosophy of mine that I have discussed here numerous times: “Means Testing is a conservative canard; a disingenuous red herring”:

THINK OF IT THIS WAY: Whenever a politician says: “This specific group of people (red herring: millionaires & billionaires) needs to be means tested,” what they REALLY mean is, “let’s carve out a group of people who should be means tested but when it comes down to it, we will means test and deny the same old groups we have always denied services (women, the elderly, Black & brown people, poor people, people with disabilities, etc. etc. etc.)”

Stated differently, saying that rich people need to be ‘means tested’ (which they never are), is a slick way of saying that POOR people need to be means tested: “Oh my gosh, if we means tested Elon Musk, then doesn’t it make sense that we should also means test the millions and mans millions of POOR people who genuinely dO need public assistance??!”

PLEASE MAKE NO MISTAKE: “Means testing” is a scam. A canard, used to deny poor people access to public assistance.

[titleknown]

You ever think about how there was a bipartisan bill in Congress to unfuck the shitty savings cap on disability, which would have been huge for the people on SSI in the US who live in poverty because of it, but it was killed by ONE ASSHOLE.

I think this man, Richie fucking Neal, should get his foot run over by a wheelchair and have paint thrown on his car by the neurodivergent artists fucked over from conventional work every fucking day of his life. Reblog if you agree!

[xerserise]

Means Testing: "If you want us to provide healthier ways for you to cope with the horrors we inflict upon the world, you need to prove that you can give up your unhealthy coping mechanisms first. If you're not at the bottom of the deepest pit imaginable, and surviving without any vices whatsoever, you don't deserve support. What, stop inflicting horrors on the world? Are you ridiculous? That's how we manage our economy!"

[thoughtportal]

[rainbowhyperfixation]

Michael Sheen, as Nye, arguing for a social safety net and against austerity

Michael Sheen as Nye “Have you been means tested” scene from Nye the play

A scene that takes place in Parliament. Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, played by Michael Sheen, is speaking against austerity and advocating that the

This is the second clip I recorded because these are the exact same issues which we are still facing.

A scene that takes place in Parliament. Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, played by Michael Sheen, is speaking against austerity and advocating that the government should help people and not just large businesses. He asks all those present if they’ve ever been means tested- ever had to go through the indignities that struggling people have to to prove they need help, in order to get meager assistance, if any.

[fvckw4d]

People who insist on means testing drive me fucking crazy. "We don't want a rich person to benefit from the program." The public already pays for the wealthier to have social safety nets, not to mention the social safety net of BEING RICH. The difference is that they can hold that over the heads of employees, partners and family members. Get the right degree or I'll stop paying for your college. Stay at my job or I won't pay for your healthcare. And the higher middle class up doesn't use a lot of the things people wring their hands and fearmonger about anyway.

A good example is the self inflicted anxiety about rich people benefiting passively from free public transit. I've seen policy makers go "we don't want our richer citizens getting free fare." Rich people don't take the fucking bus. That's been cited as an issue before, that people who drive don't take the bus, so it doesn't cut down on carbon emissions to fund it. But we use taxes to make those people's highways and parking garages, we spend millions on scooters and rented bikes and subsidizing rideshare, we divert bus routes to places only college students and office workers go and away from the poorest neighborhoods, who often don't even have a stop near them.

And some of the biggest employers and schools and colleges ALREADY OFFER free fare to students and employees. They get sweetheart deals where they pay a bulk amount for non-means tested free public transit. It means the largest demographic of receivers of free fare aren't destitute citizens, but abused workers and college kids from out of town, who leave as soon as they can't get around the city for free anymore. It means your school or workplace can hold that over your head, which they regularly do.

If a city is already offering public transit to people without means testing just because an employer or college pays for it, and even then some people will have free fare and not fucking use it because public transit is so bad here or they still see it as beneath them, then maybe that's and indication of how we could fund it and who is already most affected by it not being free. I don't care if a rich person "accidentally" benefits from a system, it's a hell of a lot better than them EXCLUSIVELY benefiting from the system while people who actually need it are regularly disqualified because of a few dollars or paperwork they don't have time for.