The benefits to welfare recipients are many. They rejoin productive society. They improve their economic status. They serve as examples to others, from neighbors to their own children. They escape the trap.
Taxpayers win, too.
The state already has regained its investment in the incentives. As that high number implies, plenty of questions remain. These issues explain precisely why a seven-year approach makes sense. Too often social programs suffer tinkering, or political pillaging, before their true impact is known. Vermont would do best to watch its welfare reform continue, before attempting to apply it too broadly or to accelerate its progress.