In 1997, the New York Times ran an article on the Southside neighborhood in Brooklyn, where half the population of 27,000 received welfare benefits. To a casual observer, such a high percentage of people on welfare would seem to indicate that a dismal local economy had driven many families onto the welfare rolls. But in 1997, New York City was undergoing its greatest period of economic expansion since the 1960s, and unemployment was declining rapidly in many areas of the city. Instead of destitution, the reporter, Joe Sexton, uncovered a culture where widespread abuse of the welfare system had become a way of life. Women routinely collected welfare benefits while working on the side and living illegally with boyfriends or husbands in subsidized housing intended for those with lower incomes. Rosemarie Pizarro, a single mother interviewed by Sexton, described the general...