Anti-Poverty Approach Needs Reform: Who Said That?

Collette Caprara / October 04, 2010

“What’s needed most right now is creating the conditions where assistance is no longer needed.”

“Let’s move beyond the old, narrow debate over how much money we’re spending [on anti-poverty programs] and let’s instead focus on results—whether we’re actually making improvements in people’s lives.”

Those quotes would certainly resonate with proponents of reform to America’s welfare system—a massive labyrinth of 70 different programs whose rolls of dependents have increased steadily throughout the past 50 years, even as they have failed to boost a small percentage of impoverished families to self-sufficiency. (more…)