President-Elect Trump Should Address the Time Tax…By Making Programs More Accessible and Secure 

Among the significant changing political trends in the presidential election was the realignment of American voters based on their income. The Associated Press explains: 

The political divide between higher-income and lower-income Americans was stark, with Trump gaining slightly among voters whose household income is less than $100,000 per year, while Harris held steady with voters who make more than that.

President Trump and the Republican party now clearly have the support of the Americans living on the bottom half of the socioeconomic ladder. 

With a popular vote victory and a Republican Congress, President Trump will have a mandate in 2025 to advance the interest of working Americans. The Trump administration is expected to advance trade and economic policies intended to benefit lower-income Americans.  

But an important way that President Trump and his administration can help those living on the bottom half of the socioeconomic ladder would be to make federal benefit programs easier to access while protecting the integrity of those programs to prevent abuse and fraud. 

Aparna Mathur, now a FREOPP scholar, reviewed Census Bureau survey data in 2019 and found that less than one third of households living at or below 130 percent of the poverty level reported receiving multiple federal benefits. Nearly half reported receiving no federal assistance. 

Over the past four years, the Biden administration has focused attention on the administrative burden of federal benefits programs. In 2023, the Biden administration’s White House issued a report describing the administration’s attempts to reduce the time tax: 

…Reducing paperwork burdens matters for all Americans, we also know that those most in need of government assistance are often those least able to navigate complex forms or processes, so time taxes and burdens entrench social and economic disparities across underserved communities.

The Biden administration highlighted ongoing efforts through the Paperwork Reduction Act to streamline much of the red tape required to access federal benefits: The administration claimed that these streamlining efforts will benefit “millions of individuals, families, and small businesses, including 18 million students and parents completing financial aid forms,

hundreds of thousands of disabled beneficiaries, some 26,000 farmers taking out direct loans from the Federal government annually, and over 25,000 Veteran-owned small businesses.”  For example, the Social Security Administration shortened a disability benefit form by 20 percent. 

Looking forward, the new Trump administration should continue and redouble the ongoing initiative to make federal benefit programs more accessible to the American people. Importantly, this should be done in a fiscally responsible way that ensures that only eligible beneficiaries can access federal benefits. 

In a new FREOPP report, Avik Roy, Michael Tanner and I present a strategy for using secure technology to advance the complementary goals of reducing the time tax and strengthening program integrity: a voluntary, secure digital identity:  

“….using digital technologies for the purpose of identity verification while providing more convenient access to federal benefits. Around the world, policymakers are establishing digital identities to facilitate citizen interactions with governments and to prevent fraud and identity theft. Several countries, most notably Estonia, have successfully addressed the problem of waste, fraud, and abuse by enacting a cryptographically secured digital identity system. Such systems work by pairing a chip-enabled identification card with a personal identification number (PIN) that the user memorizes. Unlike Social Security numbers, which are effectively in the public domain and often subject to misuse, the modern digital approach makes it more difficult to misappropriate someone’s identity.” 

The report provides details and options for how policymakers can implement a voluntary, digital ID. Importantly, a federal digital ID could make enrolling in certain public benefit programs much more convenient, and could ensure that more Americans receive the government assistance they need to escape poverty.

It’s now clear that President Trump represents a majority of working Americans and those living on the bottom half of the socioeconomic ladder. His administration has a responsibility to make government benefit programs more accessible to the American people while ensuring that federal tax dollars are spent prudently. A voluntary and secure federal digital identity should be on the agenda in 2025.