Three decades after President Bill Clinton signed landmark welfare reform into law, the principles that reshaped America's safety net retain overwhelming public support, a new survey from the Manhattan Institute finds. Seventy-four percent of likely voters favor requiring welfare recipients to show they're seeking employment, while Americans oppose universal basic income by a 50% to 32% margin. The poll, conducted July 1–6, 2026, reached 1,121 likely midterm voters and examined attitudes toward government assistance, the political landscape heading into 2026, and support for the death penalty and abolitionist proposals.
The survey reveals that voters prefer assistance focused on those truly unable to provide for themselves rather than universal benefits, by a 67% to 24% margin. Nearly two-thirds—65%—say welfare programs should aim to meet basic needs rather than narrow the income gap between rich and poor, a view supported by just 21%. Eight in ten voters favor delivering aid through specific benefits like food, housing, and health care rather than unrestricted cash. Majorities back each major element of the 1996 welfare reform law, including restricting eligibility for recent legal immigrants (58% support), limiting lifetime benefits to five years (48%), and barring food stamp eligibility for those with felony drug convictions (49%). Congress's 2025 expansion of SNAP work requirements to able-bodied adults up to age 64 draws 57% support versus 32% opposition, with independents backing the change 58% to 32%.
Age emerges as the sharpest dividing line. Voters under 35 are the only group to favor universal basic income, supporting it 49% to 30%, while those 65 and older reject it nearly four to one, at 67% to 18%. Younger voters are substantially more likely to believe welfare helps people regain self-sufficiency (63%) compared to seniors (46%), and they favor a government-guaranteed standard of living by 64% to those 65-and-up at 39%. The report notes that younger voters also support universal rather than targeted assistance by a 46% to 41% margin, "suggesting that many of the assumptions underpinning the modern welfare state are less firmly held by the rising generation." Among left-leaning voters, 67% of those aged 18–34 identify as democratic socialists rather than traditional liberals, compared to just 29% of those 65 and older.
Concerns about waste, fraud, and abuse run deep and appear central to how Americans view the welfare system. A 53% majority prioritizes cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse over making benefits easier to access, favored by 31%. Nearly half of voters—48%—believe most welfare spending is lost to waste and fraud rather than reaching those in genuine need, a view shared by a 46% to 38% plurality of independents. Seventy-three percent say reducing waste and fraud in SNAP should be an important priority for Congress, and 75% report being at least somewhat concerned about fraud within the program. After learning that the share of Americans receiving SNAP has roughly doubled since 2000—from approximately one in seventeen to one in eight—55% call the increase a bad thing, compared to just 7% who view it positively.
Beyond welfare, the survey finds Americans reject abolitionist proposals by wide margins. Eighty-two percent oppose abolishing police departments, 79% oppose eliminating prisons, and 78% oppose abolishing U.S. borders. Opposition crosses party lines: Democrats oppose abolishing police by 76% to 13%, prisons by 73% to 15%, and borders by 69% to 21%. The death penalty commands majority support, with 58% backing capital punishment for select egregious crimes and roughly three-quarters supporting it for mass murder, torture killings, child murder, terrorism, premeditated murder, and child rape. On the 2028 presidential race, Vice President JD Vance leads the Republican field with 37% to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 20%, though a hypothetical Trump endorsement of Rubio reverses the contest to 43% for Rubio versus 36% for Vance, showing Trump remains "the party's most influential political figure."
Voters skeptical of expanding the welfare state balk at the fiscal tradeoffs required to fund it. Just 10% support raising taxes to pay for more generous benefits, while 41% prefer cutting other government spending and 33% would decline to expand benefits at all. When told that countries with the most generous universal benefits finance them through higher taxes on middle- and working-class families, only 13% of voters would accept higher taxes on households like theirs. The findings suggest "that the broad public consensus underpinning Nordic-style welfare states—universal benefits financed by higher taxes on households across the income distribution—has little support among American voters." The gap between younger voters' appetite for expanded government assistance and their willingness to pay for it may define coming debates over the safety net's future.