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Topic: public assistance

Volunteers hand out food during an aid distribution event. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Welfare reform's cruel Southwest failure

Eli Hager - ProPublica
Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images/Oxford University Press)

Welfare fraud is actually rare

Mark Robert Rank, Lawrence M. Eppard, Heather E. Bullock
(Getty/Salon)

Next up: Deport the poor!

Gary Legum
Rep. John D. Cavaletto (Illinois Review)

Illinois GOP hit single moms

Sophia Tesfaye
(<a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-90441p1.html'>STILLFX</a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>/Salon)

Broke mom with expensive taste

Shannon M. Houston
(Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

The right's paranoid tribalism

Tim Donovan
Lloyd Blankfein (Reuters/Jason Reed)

How banks scam their own staff

Josh Eidelson
(Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

McDonald's urges food stamps

Josh Eidelson