Executive Order 13828, signed on April 10, 2018, directed three cabinet secretaries to conduct a comprehensive review of federal welfare and public benefit programs and propose modifications to strengthen work requirements and time limits within 90 days. The order specifically targeted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, and housing assistance programs. Rather than implementing policy directly, the executive order functioned as an administrative directive requiring the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Commerce to generate recommendations that could subsequently be enacted through regulatory channels or state waivers.

The order's implementation effects rippled across vulnerable populations dependent on these safety net programs. States subsequently used the directive as authorization to seek federal waivers expanding work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid, resulting in concrete reductions in benefits access for certain recipients, particularly non-elderly adults without dependent children. Low-income families, elderly individuals with limited employment capacity, and persons with disabilities faced potential loss of assistance under stricter requirements. The administrative approach allowed the administration to reshape welfare policy without congressional action, circumventing legislative scrutiny.

This action established a template that would influence economic policy decisions throughout subsequent administrations. The emphasis on work requirements as a poverty reduction mechanism aligned with the administration's broader economic framework, though disconnected from the trade-focused measures that would dominate later years. Unlike the tariff and trade actions that followed in 2026, which directly leveraged emergency authorities and proclamations to reshape international commerce, the welfare order operated through traditional administrative review processes.

No significant legal challenges emerged to block implementation, though advocacy groups contested the policy's assumptions about causation between work requirements and poverty reduction. States' adoption of the recommendations proceeded through standard regulatory approval processes, allowing the substantive policy shift to take effect incrementally across jurisdictions rather than through uniform federal mandate. Reversal would require either executive action rescinding the order or regulatory changes eliminating state waivers, though the programmatic effects had already become embedded in state welfare systems.