Paul Ryan says Obama administration is 'perpetuating poverty'

• Republican congressman calls for 'customised approach'

• Ryan wants states to run consolidated anti-poverty benefits

Joanna Walters in New York

14:12 EDT Sunday, 27 July 2014

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Paul Ryan, the House of Representatives budget committee chairman, speaking in May this year in Las Vegas. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters

The House of Representatives budget committee chairman, Paul Ryan, on Sunday accused the Obama administration of “perpetuating poverty” with a benefits programme that does not help the poor find a way to a better life.

Expanding on the anti-poverty programme he proposed this week, the Wisconsin Republican said the way benefits are currently administered was “counterproductive” and told NBC’s Meet the Press that people affected by poverty needed individual solutions at a local level.

“Poverty is a complicated problem and it needs to be customised,” he said.

Challenged to respond to situations in which Republican governors of impoverished states have refused to expand Medicaid healthcare assistance for those on low incomes, under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Ryan denied that such examples would make people sceptical of his plan to devolve benefits administration to the states.

“We basically have a poverty management system from the federal government, a safety net programme that is not getting people out of poverty,” he said.

Earlier this week, Ryanunveiled a proposal to transfer the allocation of benefits to state level. He wants to consolidate 11 anti-poverty benefits now run by the federal government, ranging from food stamps to public housing assistance and childcare aid, into one anti-poverty programme, administered locally.