Wisconsin, which was one of the earliest states to experiment with welfare reform, had some of the harshest work requirements in the country, according to the 1997 account of the state’s reform efforts by Jason DeParle, “Getting Opal Caples to Work,” in The New York Times Magazine. “It is tougher than anything that has come before: virtually no one is exempt,” he wrote.

Reform was successful—in a sense: Today just 3 million people receive cash assistance from the government, down from 13 million in 1995. But reform came at a price. When people could not find jobs in the allowed amount of time, they lost all government help. That thrust them into deep poverty of the type that the safety net would have once prevented. Today, about 1.5 million households, including about three million children, are living on $2.00 per person or less per day, according to the researchers Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Shaefer.

Those who do find jobs are often not much better off than they’d been on the dole. The job market is tough these days for those without more than a high school education. A study of Maryland welfare recipients exiting TANF, for example, found that just 22 percent found stable employment five years after leaving welfare, and for many more the only work available was either temporary or paid poverty wages. There is little hope of moving up. In today’s economy, most people cannot expect to receive the on-the-job training or promotions they might have decades ago. Because wages have stagnated, most people who enter low-wage jobs and stay in them will never see their pay go up significantly. “We used to have more general wage growth in the economy, so you could get a job, hold it, and stay in it,” Pamela Loprest, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said. “Even if you didn't get more education, you saw some growth in your wages over time.”

Vance, trying to get off W-2, recently applied to a job at Walmart that pays $11 an hour. If she gets it, she’ll start out as a temp and, hopefully, be hired on—if she performs well and if she’s needed. She’d love to go back to school and get trained for something higher-paying, she told me, but the welfare office requires her to find a job, rather than using her benefits to survive while she trains for more fulfilling—and remunerative—work. Without any better options, she’s going to take the Walmart job if it comes through, even though she knows it may keep her stuck in poverty.

“It’s a start,” she told me. “It will certainly help pay the bills, but as far as having a bank account or creating a nest egg, no, it won’t do that.”

The reason Vance is pushed towards work has to do with the complicated nature of welfare reform. TANF money is delivered to states as a block grant, and states can only receive that money if they get a certain percentage of people into the workforce. States now discourage skills acquisition and push people towards finding a job as soon as possible, said LaDonna Pavetti with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “I want to work, but I’m looking for a career, not just a job,” Vance told me.