Americans have long persevered in the face of the national welfare system’s inadequacies. But when a new challenge in the form of climate change emerges, how can the United States adapt its welfare programs to assist Americans? Author: Andrew Hammond, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law Host: Georgiana Soo (Volume 112 Podcast Editor) Technology Editors: Georgiana Soo (Volume 112 Podcast Editor, Al Malecha (Volume 112 Senior Technology Editor, Kiana Harkema (Volume 112 Technology Editor) Soundtrack: Composed and performed by Carter Jansen (Volume 110 Technology Editor) Note Abstract: In the United States, law condemns poor people to their fates in states. Where Americans live continues to dictate whether they can access cash, food, and medical assistance. What’s more, immigrants, territorial residents, and tribal members encounter deteriorated corners of the American welfare state. Nonetheless, despite repeated retrenchment efforts, this patchwork of programs has proven remarkably resilient. Yet, the ability of the United States to meet its people’s most basic needs now faces an unprecedented challenge: climate change. As extreme weather events like wildfires and hurricanes become more frequent and more intense, these climate-fueled disasters will displace and impoverish more people. How can the United States adapt its welfare programs to assist Americans in the face of this threat? This Article maps that uncharted territory. It contextualizes the climate crisis in our scholarly understanding of the U.S. welfare state. It then canvasses the myriad disaster provisions in each major welfare program. Equipped with an understanding of the status quo, the Article proceeds to evaluate how federal law has fared amid the recent spate of fires and floods. The Article attends to the role of Congress, weakened as it is by increased polarization and diminished capacity, and how the resulting delays and distortions in emergency relief have hampered the governmental response. The Article then brings state government into focus, and in doing so, demonstrates how assistance often excludes the most vulnerable Americans. The Article also extracts lessons from the pandemic response and applies them to climate adaptation of public benefits. The Article concludes with an agenda for how to adapt welfare programs to meet the climate crisis. That agenda starts and ends with the federal government, but it includes policies states, territories, and Tribes could implement if Congress and federal agencies do nothing or not enough. The Article repurposes what we know about how the U.S. welfare state functions now to inform what government should do next.