Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Minor · Needs Congress

Enact legislation removing work and marriage penalties in housing benefits

Not started

509 15. Department of Housing and Urban Development

“Notwithstanding administrative reforms, Congress should enact legislation that protects life and eliminates provisions in federal housing and welfare benefits policies that discourage work, marriage, and meaningful paths to upward economic mobility.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Congress has enacted nothing of the kind, and has not introduced it either. No 119th-Congress bill eliminates a work or marriage penalty in federal housing or welfare benefits: the marriage-penalty bills of the 119th Congress are all tax measures (the SALT deduction, student loans), and the one housing bill on work incentives, H.R. 8877, the "Improving Self-Sufficiency of Families in HUD-Subsidized Housing Act" (2026-05-19), only directs HUD to conduct a study of how public housing agencies implement work requirements — it changes no benefit provision — and was referred to the Committee on Financial Services with no further action. The administration has acted alone instead, by proposed rule (#1418, #1419), which is the executive route this Quote says is not enough.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Negative search:
    • The titles of the bills we keep and search (from congress.gov), for “marriage” — ten bills, none touching housing or welfare benefit eligibility.
    • The same bill titles, for “work requirement”, “self-sufficiency”, “welfare” or “able-bodied” — the only housing entry is H.R. 8877, read in full at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr8877ih/html/BILLS-119hr8877ih.htm and confirmed to be a study mandate. Reading the operative text is what keeps this at not started: the title matches the ask and the bill does not.
    • The public laws we keep and search (from congress.gov) — none of the 119th Congress amends housing or welfare benefit provisions on these grounds.
  • On an ask that needs an act of Congress, a bill that has only been referred to committee does not count as progress, so this would be not started in any case.
Action
repeal
Object
federal housing and welfare benefit provisions that discourage work and marriage
ID
1421