From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the number of Americans on welfare grew from 4.3 million to close to 10 million, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Peter Edelman, the author of Searching for America’s Heart, maintains that the rising welfare population during this period was caused by the loss of jobs in the inner city, as manufacturing operations left New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia for less expensive regions of the country and the world. According to Edelman, the changing economic situation in inner cities coincided with growing sentiment among the poor that they had a “right” to welfare and should not be abandoned to an unreliable economy and the whims of government generosity. Explains Edelman, “Inspired by the civil rights movement and community-action activism, welfare recipients organized to demand fair treatment at the welfare...