In the National Review, Robert Doar set-out these from his time as commissioner of the New York City social service agency between 2007 and 2013:
- Always promote personal responsibility.
- Employment is far better than training and education.
- Making work pay is welfare reform too.
- Be honest about the importance of married two-parent families.
- Caseworkers don’t cost much; benefits do.
- Medicaid is where the money is.
- Immigrants get welfare too.
- Welfare recipients (and workers too) will try to "get over." "To get over" is a very New York expression meaning to steal
- When it comes to the disabled, trust but verify.
- Always cheer for the economy.
Figure 1: WELFARE CASELOADS AND RECIPIENTS (AFDC AND TANF PROGRAMS), IN THOUSANDS
Source: Administration for Children and Families, TANF caseload data, 2011.
I should add that after the 1996 federal welfare reforms in the USA that time limited life-time federal welfare receipt to 5-years, the 2/3rd decline in welfare participation and the gains in employment were largest among the single mothers previously thought to be most disadvantaged: young (ages 18-29), mothers with children aged under seven, high school drop-outs, and black and Hispanic mothers. These low-skilled single mothers were thought to face the greatest barriers to employment. Blank (2002) found that:
nobody of any political persuasion predicted or would have believed possible the magnitude of change that occurred in the behaviour of low-income single-parent families.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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