The Benefits Cliff

Benefits cliffs are the points on the path from poverty to economic stability where a small increase in earnings causes the loss of a public benefit. For many Ohioans, earning just a dollar more means they could lose access to benefits like Publicly Funded Child Care (PFCC), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or Medicaid, setting them further behind than if they did not have an increase in income. 

Workers often make career decisions based on the cliff by turning down raises and promotions, keeping them trapped at their current wage and supported by benefits. Businesses then struggle to fill open positions and retain workers, and taxpayers lose by funding a public benefits system that traps Ohioans in poverty, rather than supporting growth towards economic stability.

• The Center for Community Solutions: Policy Change Can Reduce Benefit Cliffs and Incentivize Work (2022)

• FedCommunities: A hand up, not a handout, to cross the benefits cliff (2022)

• National Center for Children in Poverty: Addressing Benefit Cliffs with the Family Resource Simulator (2021)

• National Conference of State Legislatures: Introduction to Benefits Cliffs and Public Assistance Programs (2024)

• National Conference of State Legislatures: Mitigating SNAP Benefits Cliffs (2024)

• National Conference of State Legislatures: Mitigating TANF Benefits Cliffs (2024)

• National Conference of State Legislatures: Addressing Benefits Cliffs (2019)

• National Governors Association: Advancing Economic Mobility for Low-Income Families: Policy Options for Governors (2022)

• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation: Benefits Cliffs: Effects on Workers and the Role of Employers (2022)

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Understanding Economic Risk for Low-Income Families: Economic Security, Program Benefits, and Decisions about Work (2024)

• Weber State University: State Level Options to Mitigate Benefit Cliffs (2024)

• Women’s Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation: Benefits and Costs of State Refundable Earned Income Tax Credits (2024)

• Women’s Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation: The Cliff Effect and Other Disincentives in our Public Benefit System (2020)

• Women’s Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation: PULSE Briefing: Survey of Legislation to Ameliorate the Cliff Effect (2019)

• Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta: Career Ladder Identifier and Financial Forecaster (CLIFF)

• Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: Occupational Mobility Explorer

• Women’s Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation: Self-Sufficiency Simulator

• Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio: Out of Reach Ohio (2025)

• Health Policy Institute of Ohio: Strategies to improve family financial security (2024)

• National Low Income Housing Coalition: The Gap Report (2025)

• Ohio Workforce Coalition: When Working Isn’t Enough (2023)

• Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies: State of Poverty (2025)

• Policy Matters Ohio: State of Working Ohio (2023)

• United for ALICE: The State of ALICE In Ohio (2025)

• Michigan HHS Digital Service Delivery Platform: MI Bridges

• Colorado Center on Law and Policy Gap Map