Welfare benefits may not in and of themselves cause someone to uproot social ties, but for families otherwise seeking mobility, the financial impact becomes a factor. Welfare should not be seen as intervening in the lives of young people and suddenly causing them to reproduce. But in the complex decision of multiple factors, the balance shifts in favor of reproduction. Responding to incentives and altering behavior accordingly is an almost universal characteristic. To deny this principle to the poor is to denigrate their human standing.
Real reform believes that the poor are changeable, and that the children of the poor are educable.
By this thesis, we should look to the future generation. The point of reform must be the young children now approaching adolescence. If they can decline child bearing, they can finish school, enter the labor force, marry, and then bring forth children in health. Thus, reform policies are based on hope. This argument is testable.