A lot of welfare “reform” is little more than harassment, such as making recipients take a two hour bus ride to the other side of a metro area, for “counseling” that consists of nothing but a sign in sheet, three times a week. That is, it is a patronage job for the “counselor” who doesn’t show up.
This being said, *real* reform is oriented to supporting those who have no capacity to earn a living or otherwise fend for themselves; workfare for those who can work, where they get a much better deal by working than not; and finally, one thing that gets neglected, welfare *avoidance* programs, that try to divert people from ever getting in the system in the first place. These are mostly the recently unemployed, who still have some resources they can use to get work.
All but the first part is oriented to getting people out of the system, instead of paying a bunch of counselors a fortune to accomplish little or nothing.
I used to be a worker in that system. Somehow the unemployment office was tasked with training AFDC/TANF and SNAP recipients in job seeking skills. I was transferred out of helping veterans to doing that because I had once worked in a welfare-related program called PROMISE JOBS which is an acronym.