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Welfare reform worked, just not for the people who need welfare

This week marks the 15th anniversary of welfare reform, in which a Republican Congress and a re-election-focused Democratic president got together to fulfill the latter's promise to "end welfare as we know it."

Certainly the new law accomplished this: it replaced the old welfare program with a welfare-to-work alternative administered by the states, and it significantly reduced the number of people on the rolls. But has it done well by the poor?