"If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don't care," said Nia Foster, a 32-year-old mother of two on public assistance in this AP article. It's almost ironic that she now has temporary employment in a tax preparation office.

According to the article, more people are receiving "public" assistance now than at any time since we started measuring such things.

The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.

The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.

To be sure, less people are on the current welfare rolls. However, the government has used some creative sleight-of-hand tricks to make sure that the checks arrive from different offices - ones without the word "welfare" so conspicously attached.

"If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo," said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women's studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York. "If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success."

With Democrats now in charge of Congress, don't expect things to get any better. By the same token, don't look to the executive branch for improvement. This comes direct from the elephant's mouth:

"I don't have any problems with those programs growing, and indeed, they were intended to grow," said Ron Haskins, a former adviser to President Bush on welfare policy.