The welfare state itself is a fraud. Legalized looting. Few people (including economists) realize that the “poverty rate” is a relative, not absolute measure, calculated arbitrarily as 50% of median income, so when the latter rises, so does the poverty threshold. That’s why no amount of government spending on poverty alleviation can sustainably reduce the poverty rate (aside from the fact that subsidizing a thing causes more of the thing). Most poverty pimps know this math and prefer the relativist measure precisely cuz it’s used to justify perpetual increases in government welfare looting/spending (from which the pimps extract their share). Conservatives aid and abet the fraud.