An Alternative View. In Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson, ed., The Urban Underclass. They include Medicaid, SSI, Food Stamps, EITC, and other low income programs. They are not universal programs. Targeted programs are stronger if they serve low-income and moderate income programs as well as poor but don't have to be universal programs.
Programs are stronger if they are regarded as an earned benefit or linked to work somehow.
Programs are weak if they provide cash assistance to young, able-bodied people who do not work. Nearly all entitlements cutbacks came from non-means tested programs such as Medicare. SSI actually faired better at Federal level in 1990s than Social Security in terms of cutbacks. WIC has done overall quite well in recent years. Likewise, EITC has done well.