The War on Poverty is 50 years old. Over that time, federal and state governments have spent more than $19 trillion fighting poverty. But what have we really accomplished?Although far from conclusive, the evidence suggests that we have successfully reduced many of the deprivations of material...

In 1995, the Cato Institute published a groundbreaking study, The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off, which estimated the value of the full package of welfare benefits available to a typical recipient in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It found that not only did the value of such...