New York City is quickly heading down the same path. Chicago is already there. And, don’t get me started on Kalifornia, San Fran, in particular.
In 1964 I quit the Dept of Public Welfare as a caseworker because “the Department creates and sustains poverty. It does not overcome it.”
I realized then that the primary job of bureaucracy is to sustain itself and grow. When its existence is based upon the needs of people in the private sector those needs must be increased for the bureaucracy to meet its goals.
The fundamentals of public assistance are wrong. There is no possibility of overcoming need through public charity. Only private charity can bring people out of poverty.