About 1980, welfare used to be a hot political topic in Canada. But these days, it hardly gets mentioned. Even conservative thinkers seem to acknowledge the importance of social assistance.

Social assistance is largely in the jurisdiction of the provinces. My anecdotal experience is that the legislation is changed every 10 years. Civil servants monitor how things work and figure out ways to improve them. And they watch what is happening in other provinces. They then craft new legislation, which seems to work better than the previous legisaltion.

It seems USA is stuck with bad legislation for a long time.