Most social scientists, policy makers, and citizens who support the welfare state do so in part because they believe social-welfare programs help to reduce the incidence of poverty. Yet a growing number of critics assert that such programs in fact fail to do so, because too small a share of...

Whether economic growth or social policy does more to benefit the poor is the subject of longstanding interest and debate. I examine the experiences of the world's affluent countries during a period of two and a half decades for which reliable comparative data are available. Over this period,...