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Welfare entitlements have actually increased. The trick is that they've been shifted to different programs, provided in different ways, and to some extent, provided in the same old ways but the entitlements have simply been renamed.

One example is welfare dependence measured by the number of families on AFDC. Of course that number has dropped - AFDC was renamed to TANF. It's the same program basically, but with a new marketing strategy, more funding, and more paperwork. That's what welfare reform did. Another example; entitlements increased via "child support enforcement" in a variety of ways. One was the mechanism of welfare entitlement as a child support guarantee ... fed decided that single mothers should get both the guaranteed support plus the private support paid by fathers; instead of only an amount summing to old entitlement levels. New education progams were created ... like Europeans ... poverty and welfare dependence can now be hidden in a multitude of programs that just aren't referred to as providing basic, old-fashioned welfare benefits. Make no mistake about it, the welfare state and government power have both increased dramatically.

Poverty rates are also very sensitive to the economy, as are rates of child support payments ... i.e. what the bureacracy calls "collections" for the sake of increasing the amount of pork distributed to the states.