The One Door model just makes sense when you see the convoluted and inhumane way the current safety net is structured. There is also ample evidence to show that the one state that has implemented it, Utah, has gotten results. Below are some commonly asked questions and responses:

Objection 1: Won’t One Door just lead to more people signing up for welfare because it makes it easier?

That is also what some people said back in the 1990s when Utah started implementing One Door, but in fact it does the opposite. The goal of One Door is to create a cohesive system that always points the user toward work. The status quo in other states keeps work support and training in a different bureaucracy, illogically siloed from case workers who are serving people who are out of work. The goal of the One Door model is to create a “work-centric” agency with the supportive services not being ends unto themselves, but rather supportive of the individual getting back into the labor force.

Further, making the system needlessly complex to navigate with hoops to jump through and disincentives to get work support should be bugs, not features. Proponents of the status quo making this argument are ultimately treating all welfare recipients as if they’re out to abuse the system.

Objection #2: How do you empirically know it has worked in Utah?

We can look at both program participation and labor force participation rates as measures of success. But, you have to look at the numbers in context of both how demographics and federal welfare policies have changed in the last 30 years: 

SNAP and Medicaid enrollment: One Door may solve many problems, but it doesn’t correct for bad federal policies that have expanded programs in the last two decades. Nationally, SNAP and Medicaid enrollment have ballooned due to expansion of the programs out of DC. Utah expanded its Medicaid population with federal incentives in 2019, and this has nothing to do with the One Door model. However, Utah outperforms the nation when it comes to the troubling trend in increased SNAP enrollment. The U.S. participation in SNAP, less Utah, has increased from 10.6% in 1994 to 12.3% of the population in 2024. However, in Utah, it dropped from 6.6% to 4.8% over the same period of time.

Labor Force Participation Rate: National demographic changes– such as immigration and baby boomers aging out of the labor force– have impacted the labor force participation rate. Factoring these national demographic changes in, Utah outperforms the nation.

The below visual of the national Labor Force Participation Rate and this Bureau of Labor Statistics article helps to further explain how demographic changes have affected this measure.

Utah’s Labor Force Participation rate:

The Heritage Foundation scholars examined the data on Utah and found that:

“Since embarking on “One Door,” Utah’s advantage has averaged 6 percentage points and currently stands at 7.3 points. The state’s employment-to-population ratio is currently 67.4%; for the entire U.S., it’s 60.1%. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and millions of Americans lost their jobs, most states struggled with outdated unemployment insurance systems that prevented them from quickly delivering benefits to those in need (and also resulting in massive fraud and abuse).

Meanwhile, Utah’s integration of services and ability to shift resources allowed the state to deliver unemployment benefits quickly while also promoting rapid reemployment by connecting directly with 40% of unemployment insurance claimants and letting them know how the Department of Workplace Services could help them find a job.

By August 2020, Utah’s unemployment rate plummeted to 4.9% (vs. 8.4% nationwide). By December 2020, it was 3.6% (vs. 6.7% nationwide). The national unemployment rate didn’t fall to 3.6% until 15 months later, in March 2022 (at which point Utah’s was 2.2%).  

Although much of the U.S. has struggled with labor shortages (millions of workers still haven’t come back into the workforce since the pandemic began), Utah’s workforce grew substantially. If the rest of the U.S. had followed the same path, 5 million more Americans would be working today.”

Objection #3: Doesn’t this just make a bigger, slower-moving bureaucracy?

Utah’s example shows this is not true. Economies of scale (the saving in costs and resources gained by an increased level of production) are created by pooling resources, staff, location, data, and administration of multiple programs. Utah case workers can port caseloads to a less busy rural office when an urban office gets a backlog because they are all using the same data and eligibility system. This was exemplified during COVID-19 when unemployment backlogs were insurmountable in other states, Utah was able to be nimble and respond faster. Some states still have not recovered from COVID-19 unemployment. Utah gained two jobs for every one lost during COVID-19.