Tomorrow, Speaker Paul Ryan will moderate a forum at which top Republicans will present and discuss ideas for fighting poverty. Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, writes that real solutions to poverty should expand policies that have already been proven to work: strengthening the social safety net, making poverty programs better coordinated and more accessible to low income families, and improving job opportunities and wages across the board:

“Given his past comments, it seems hugely unlikely that Ryan’s effort will emphasize these priorities, and will instead focus on pure distractions, like alleged fundamental design flaws in safety net programs that keep them from working,” Gould writes. “The American safety net does, of course, have a fundamental flaw: it’s simply not generous enough, because we do not provide it enough money. Any serious agenda to address poverty should attack both pre-tax and transfer inequality (mostly by boosting hourly compensation for low and moderate-wage workers) and post-tax and transfer inequality by strengthening the safety net.”

Gould is available for interviews. To set up a time to speak with her, email news@epi.org.