"Let me make sure that I understand you correctly," I inquired of the welfare caseworker as I presented her with my pregnancy confirmation note from a doctor. "All I have to do for you to send me $465 a month, $176 worth of food stamps, and 100% free medical and dental assistance is keep this baby. As long as I don't have a bank account, find a job, or get married, I qualify for aid? Where do I sign up?"
Not only is that useless anecdote pre-1996 welfare reform, it is pre-Reagan Revolution. Nowadays people can still be lazy, but they can't go about it the same way. This typically either involves a baby-daddy or a schmuck husband, or--over the course of time--both.
The broader social critique is equally absurd. It almost sounds as if there are some people who are so completely moronic that they believe that poor people
don't exist. I guess this is how people try to make reality conform to policy

instead of the way that sane people go about things--which is the exact opposite.