No, There Isn’t an Epidemic of Workless Medicaid Recipients
Trump administration officials including RFK Jr want to add work requirements to Medicaid, arguing that there is a major scourge of able-bodied recipients refusing to get jobs. Their case dramatically overstates how many people in this group are not working.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr speaks alongside President Donald Trump during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on May 12, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The New York Times recently ran an opinion piece from Robert F. Kennedy Jr and three other Trump administration officials in which they argue in favor of adding work requirements to Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans.
At one point in the piece, they write that:
A recent analysis from an economist at the American Enterprise Institute [AEI] examined survey data from December 2022 (the most recent month available) and found that just 44 percent of able-bodied, working-age Medicaid beneficiaries without dependents worked at least 80 hours in that month.
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