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So today I am here with my co-hosts, Artie Virkant.

Hello.

And Phil Rocco.

Hey.

And the three of us are checking back in on a topic that we cover often and have covered

for years now, which is the current state of the welfare state in the United States.

Now, when the pandemic began way back in 2020, the conversation that we had been having prior

to the pandemic was mostly surrounding Medicaid, children's health insurance called CHIP,

SNAP, known as food stamps, state level SSI for disability.

And that was all really blown wide open by the fact that during the early months of the still

ongoing COVID pandemic,

we saw a kind of impressive and very quick expansion of the welfare state in the United States.

And since 2021, our coverage, unfortunately, has been characterized by a kind of long, slow

...